Grocery = $35.25, right on target.

Items we got:
- 4 litres Milk
- 1 doz Eggs
- 2 bags of Rolled Oats
- 600ml Cream
- 500g Frozen Raspberries
- 1 can of Sliced Pineapple
- 105g can of Pink Salmon
- 95g can of Tuna
- Loaf of Bread
- 1 Continental Cucumber
- 9 Bananas
- 600g Pork Leg Chop
- 2 Fish (Leather Jackets)
- 2 bags a assorted vegetables - it had 8 Brussel Sprouts, 3 different coloured Capsicums, a baby eggplant, broccoli and 5 tomatoes

This is probably my first time buying brussel sprouts, we’ve had those couple times before in restaurants and hated it. But on the weekend I thought I should give it another try. I cut them in half and roasted them with a lot of butter. It was actually yummy.

I also roasted some of the tomatoes and capsicums, while I had the Brussel sprouts on and made soup out of it, nice to have soup on these cold winter days. I know there’s a heat wave in the US at the moment but believe me the weather we had here on the weekend was horrible also, very strong wind. Apart from going grocery shopping we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed in bed for most of it with our electric blanket, reading our books and watching Netflix, I’m obsess with those FBI files and real detective shows at the moment.

I've decided to post this earlier than usual, but it is already 6pm on Saturday 30th of June here. I want to move on to my end of the month post in couple of days.

Grocery = $33.00 even, which is around $25 US dollars.

What we got (I’ve decided to include the prices for this week – Aust dollars of course):
- 3 litres Milk ($2.99)
- 1 Whole Chicken ($5.25) – noticed that I have been buying this for few weeks now because Aldi have reduced the price down to $3 a kilo.
- 1 doz Eggs ($2.79)
- 1 kg Plain Flour ($0.75)
- a loaf of Bread ($0.99)
- a bag of Rolled Oats ($1.19)
- 7 Bananas ($2.34)
- 250g of Strawberries ($1.99)
- 3 Carrots ($0.76)
- A handful of Mixed Salad Leaves ($0.67)
- 1 Red Capsicum ($0.90)
- 1 packet of Custard Biscuit ($0.69)
- 4kg of Laundry Powder ($3.69)
- 24 rolls of 3ply Toilet Tissue ($8.00)

Apart from chickens we haven’t really been buying much meat this month. We have been slowly getting through what we have in the freezer. We don’t really eat that much meat these days so we still have a good amount of meat in the freezer.
DH and I just been discussing this challenge, we both agree to continue in July. The same deal $180 grocery budget for the month. We will actually have more money to spend per week than this month because July only got 4 Saturday whereas June had 5 ($45 p/w instead of $36 p/w). But I am anticipating that we will need to buy another sack of rice (20kg) in July. Last time it cost $31 that was back in Feb, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the prices have gone up for few dollars. So, for the next couple of weeks I’m going to continue spending only $35 per week and then on the 3rd week of July get the sack of rice.

Cons about this challenge:
- Must plan, can’t just go to the shop without a list (I already do this about 90% of the time so it was not such a hassle for me).
- No room for snacks, expensive items and impulse buying.
- Can’t indulge – have to buy no-name brand and no-frills items to stretch the money (although this really did not bother us since we already do this anyway for most of the things we buy)
- Can’t take advantage of bulk sales because if you do that’s all you are able to get and will have to eat a lot of it for the week (this was probably the hardest thing to do for me).

Pros about this challenge:
- Well saving money is on the top of the list.
- Healthier because we are not eating snacks and process food (although we were not big on these stuff to start with). We mostly bought items that are considered ‘ingredients’.
- It cuts down on the waste and I love it. Probably not buying bulked items helped on cutting waste. And have made me used up items we already have that needs to be eaten now.
- It made me more creative in cooking and motived me to try out new things.
- It cut down on the shopping time because our shopping list was considerably shorter.


Door Stopper - replaced one for $1.50

Lunch - DH forgot his lunch yesterday of roast pork and vegetables in the fridge. He was really looking forward to it too. But sometimes these things happens. He end up getting a co-worker to buy him a burger and chips since he was too busy to go get one himself. I guess that's why he forgot his lunch he got too many things in his mind, they got few major project going on and so he is just too busy. Anyway, the burger and chips were $15.

Grocery = $30.96. We did well.

What we got:
- 5 litres Milk
- 1 Whole Chicken
- 2 doz Eggs
- 1 box of Corn Flour
- 1 bottle of Passata
- 4 Hamburger Rolls
- 0.12kg of Mixed Nuts and Dried Fruit
- 1 Avocado
- 2 small Lettuce (was on sale - $1.50)
- 1 bag (10) Tomatoes (was on sale $1.50) – A couple were bruised and had to be thrown out but it was still a very good deal.
- 1.5kg of Potatoes – This was only $1 because it was on sale
- 2 Brown Onions
- 0.265kg Broccoli
- 0.045kg Ginger
- Deli Ham

New Shoes – DH’s work shoes are on its last legs, so went shopping on the weekend. There were some good sales happening because it is our end of financial year at the end of the month. There was also ‘buy the second pair for half price’ – so I end up getting a pair of boots. For both we paid $84.92.

Lunch Out – While out shopping we went out for lunch ($20.60) and also got coffee and cheese cake ($13.95) after buying the shoes.

Grocery = $41.55. Over $5 than what I wanted to spend but I got a bit this week.
What we got:
- 5 litres Milk
- 1 Whole Chicken
- 1 can Whole Tomato
- 500g Penne Pasta
- 1 box of Tissues
- 1 pack of Biscuit ( I like to have 1 or 2 with my afternoon coffee)
- 1 pack of 6 Burger Buns
- 0.48kg of Beef (2 x Porterhouse cut)
- ½ Cauliflower
- 1 can of Coconut Cream
- small container of grated Parmesan Cheese
- 0.9kg of Potatoes
- 0.68kg of Sweet Potatoes (these are so cheap at the moment so I got more)
- 0.44kg Pumpkin
- 5 Carrots (0.7kg)
- 7 Bananas
- A handful of Mixed Salads
- 3 Green Capsicums (0.4kg)
- 2 Tomatoes (these are not in season so they are expensive are terrible at the moment)
- 1 Red Onion
- 1 Pink Himalayan Salt Grinder (was on sale and running out soon)
- 3 small bags of Spices (I got Garam Masala, Oregano and Cinnamon Sticks – they were on sale, 3 for $2.50)
The last two items were what took us over the budget, they were not on the list but I have run out of garam masala and cinnamon sticks and almost running out of dried oregano. I should also note that I had cucumber and avocado on the list but didn’t get them. Cucumbers are crazy expensive at the moment and the avocado looked awful, both were not worth getting.

Water Bill – $207.07 for the quarter, this is about average amount for us at the moment.

Electric Bill – Our new charges for the quarter was $58.43 but since we accumulated $94.72 credit in the last bill so now we are left with $36.29 credit. I guess cutting down spent watching TV help cut down our electric bill further.

Exercise Leg Bands – Mine broke 2 weeks ago, DH got some online for $13 for 6 in the pack (different resistance).

Grocery = $35.30
What we got:
- 4 litres Milk
- 500g Frozen Blueberries
- 1 Whole Chicken
- 1 kg of SR Flour
- 375ml of Cream Cleanser (cleaning cream)
- 1 big Turkish Pide/Bread
- 1 Loaf of Bread
- 2 doz of Eggs
- 3 Onions
- 1 Bulb of Garlic
- 0.125kg of Ginger
- 0.87kg of Pumpkin
- 2 Pears
- 1.08kg of Sweet Potatoes
- 0.16kg of Spinach
- 1 big Eggplant
- 1 litre of Soy Sauce - this was the only thing that I didn't have in the list but I had some money leftover and we will soon be running out.

Doggie Poo Bag – DH order another batch of doggie poo bag, they are compostable made from corn, $84. It should last us a year and a half.

Grocery = $36.60
I was actually hoping to only spend $35 and it would have been but Aldi forgot to put the right price for the corned beef (beef silverside) that we got. It was supposed to be $7.14 because of it was on sale from $8.92 ($1.78 difference). This happened because I left DH to pay of the grocery while I went to the grocer shop few doors down. DH just didn’t look at the receipt after. Unfortunately, I only realised the wrong charge when we were already home and it was not worth going back. Oh well life happens and now I get to blog about it.

We at least got everything that was in my shopping list. So this is what we got:
- About 1 kg of Corned Beef – this was the only thing that was not on the list but because it was ‘on sale’ was the only reason we got it. It will not go to waste at least.
- 1 kg block of Cheese
- 3 litres of Milk
- 1 whole Chicken
- 500g of Frozen mixed berries
- 1 Avocado
- 250g Cherry Tomatoes
- 1 small bottle of Mustard – so last week while cleaning the fridge I accidently dropped the mustard bottle, it was still half full.
- 2 Apples
- 1 bunch of Asparagus
- 1 Pomegranate
- 200g Mushrooms

Netflix – We decided to put on Netflix again.

Grocery – $44.10
Plumber – Was less than anticipated, paid $250.
Friend’s Birthday – Gift was $100
Fuel - $32.80

Not much else to report really.

Back to our normal life.

Grocery – we did a big shop which end up totalling to $112.74

Mother’s Day – Spent $114 on gifts

Plumbing Issues – We got a blocked sewage pipe, the plumber should be coming to unblock it tomorrow. I’m anticipating it will cost around $300.

This was an expensive week, there were few things we had to spend money on and last week was my birthday so we went out for dinner, it was low key celebration.

Groceries – spent a total of $76.70

Birthday Dinner – We went to a nice Italian restaurant that we haven’t been to for over 2 years, one of our favourite. We spent $115.50, I ate way too much that I skipped breakfast and lunch the next day. They were big servings we are not used with those these days normally, most restaurants hardly have anything on the plate. I received few more gift cards.

Clothes & Bed Sheets – We had to throw away most of our thermal under garment so bought new ones because winter is coming. That was $48.95. While there we found a nice Flannelette Bed Sheets sets for $29.99. I love those for winter.

New Convection Oven – We had to get a new one because the other one died half-way to using it - that was only $45.

Paint – DH built a screen wall outside, it will help to hide the clothes line. Most of the materials he used were reclaimed wood except for a couple posts. It will need painting, bought some for $53.70. It will have a lot of left overs that I can used in the future.

Internet – Just like our health insurance we have an option of free paying. We can pay a year in advance and get 2 months for free, a saving of $130. DH paid $780 for the year.

Car rental Deposit – We are visiting my brother and family again. We decided we will need transportation so we can visit other towns. Last night DH paid the deposit of $107.08.

I think that’s it for now.

The weather was terrible on the weekend so we didn’t do much.

Groceries – spent a total of $79.71

Lunch out – On Sat we caught up with a friend for lunch we had Paella and beers, spent $37.50.

Garden Supplies – Got some supplies, $40.70.

Had to spend a bit of money this week…

Groceries – we don’t need much this week, spent $36.35

Car – DH took the car to get the air conditioning re-gassed, unfortunately the filter need to also be replaced because it was blocked. All up it cost $200.20

Private Health Insurance – This one is a biggie. We got an email asking us if we wanted to prepay our health insurance for a year. Prepaying would mean we can pay using the current price instead of the new rate that will increase starting next month. It will increase by around 7-8%, I believe, which is $11.80 increase per month. It cost $1,958.76 with a total saving of $141.84. It doesn’t seem much but it still a saving. This is another example of where having savings helps you save money by taking advantage (opportunity costs) of these types of opportunities.

Electric Bill – (yet another example of taking advantage of an opportunity cost), by having a solar panels we now have so much lower electric bill. Although it cost us some money (over $2K) to get it installed it has now paid dividend. Last bill was $17.10 CREDIT and this current bill was $77.62 CREDIT, I love summer! Anyway we now have a total credit of $94.72 that will hopefully offset some, if not most of next bill. It is a paradox whereby only the “rich” can afford to buy cheap (not that I’m saying I’m rich or anything like that!) but every bit helps.

Portable Speaker – Using a gift card (another one we got as a gift for Christmas) DH bought one of those portable speaker. DH wanted to get one to mainly use in the car for when he wants to listen to podcasts and music. It sounds so much better than just using the phone speaker or our 18 year old car’s speaker and no need for cable with Bluetooth connection. We went to the store looking to buy one he looked at online but he saw another one, the same brand, which was just a little bit better in terms of hours play. He looked it up online store for this store to see how much they were selling it for; online it was $20 less so he asked the lady at the counter if could get it for the price online, it was no problem. It saved him the hassled of buying it online. So he paid $59, which leaves us with $41 left in the gift card.

We had a 3-day week-end here. We mainly just relaxed, did a couple of hours of tinkering outside in the garden and we went to the zoo for few hours on Sunday. We were going to do a good clean out of the garage but I think we are going to try and do that next month instead, after Easter holidays. We were going to hire a skip bin, they are around $250-$300 (the one we normally hire, they drop off the empty bin, we fill it up and they pick it up) but I think we are going to try and take the rubbish to the tip ourselves and hire a trailer instead, they are around $30-50 to hire for 4 hours (depending on size) and the tip pay is around $60-80 per trailer load. We probably got about 2 to 3 trailer load. Most of the rubbish is broken bricks, soils and building materials which would require extra pay if we hire that skip bin.

We did a little bit of spending this weekend.

Groceries – was $113.47. We stocked up on some dental products; toothpaste, mouthwash, toothbrushes and floss. Also got some snack for a trip we are going on later this month.

Clothes – There was a sale and I kind of did some new underwear so spent $33.92

Gifts – Got a gift for $25.97

Zoo – Zoo spending was minimal since we already got the annual passes which are expiring next month. Only spent on $2 parking and $5 on a pricey latte, DH and I shared even though the large was very small.

Netflix – Cancelled Netflix again since I probably won’t be watching it much for the next month or so. I will probably put it on again in June; a lot of new shows/seasons will be release then.

The spending have slowed down – could only be a good thing.

Grocery – was a tad high went to the butcher place where I been going to once a month for the last 4 months. Total for the week was $92.20

Train Pass – DH topped up his train pass, he put in $50. DH has been doing so well this year I think he has saved around $100 already by getting to work early. He has been taking advantage of Early Bird Train Travel. Here your journey is free if you get to your destination before 7.15am. He has done this except on 2 occasions.

Garden – Bought some bags sands for paving worth $31.16

Salvo – we took some stuff to the Salvation Army, while there I bought 3 books worth $6.75 (funny I got rid of 4 books but gain 3 back). This money came out from my birthday money from last year I still got over $50 left I haven’t spent. I barely spent my allocated allowance money these days, I’ll probably buy a new laptop next year.

Spending for the weekend was just over $300, whenever it is above $300 I tend to consider it to be high. We went a bit crazy on buying some stuff for the garden.

Grocery - $90.36, this could have been lower but Valentine’s Day this weekend so I got some fancy cut of meat.

Beauty products – don’t buy these often but I spent $21.95

Eat-out – We were out and about for most of the weekend so we eat out couple of times, all up $27.10

Garden Items – Got bunch of stuff including those pebbles that I wanted to get for the rock garden, the 15kg bags were actually $11.95 so I got 2 bags which was more than enough. I think I mentioned in my previous blog that I was going to get 1.5kg, well there are hardly any rocks in 1.5kg bag. The 15 kg was way cheaper. Then since we were at the nursery we end up getting bunch of other stuff that was not necessary but I wanted and I actually had in my list of things to get there. After all of that we end up spending $128.63. That place is a dangerous place for me.

Clothing – Was not planning to go clothes shopping but we were near this store that we got gift cards for. The gift cards we got from Christmas. They were having 40% off on some items that was already discounted so we had a look and end up getting 3 things. One was an ultra-light puffer jacket for DH, they are great for when we go travelling and I got 2 things, 1 The North Face a long sleeved shirt and another thick zipped up shirt. I’ve recently got rid of 2 hoodie shirts so these are replacements. We used up one of the $100 gift card and we still got another left but we didn’t know what else to get.

We had a 3-day weekend here for Australia day public holiday. We didn’t do anything because the weather was very hot again. We just had staycation and relax and watch some more cricket games. It was great to just stay home, we actually got invited to go to the beach near my friends place to celebrate Australia day but it is over an hour drive and would just been too tiring. DH has been getting up early and working long hours so he really needed the weekend to catch up on sleep. The heat doesn’t help though; the other night the temperature didn’t get below 27degree Celsius thankfully it rained last night and the temperature has cold down considerably today.

Staying home was not only good for DH to get rest but was also good for the wallet. We only went out to get groceries and got a takeout for end of the week thing that we have been doing for a while now.

Grocery – Spent $61.12

Takeout – was $14

We are doing well this month compare to 12 months ago. I will look into end of the month numbers tomorrow.

Grocery (the Good) – Spent $31.92 this week.

Eating Out (the Bad) – We spent a bit on eating out and getting some soup. We went to a restaurant that is near our place it has been there for years but it is only now that we finally decided to try it out. We had lunch there on Saturday. It’s a nice place and food was really good and prices were very reasonable as well, will definitely be going there again. We also decided to go to the park on Sunday for a picnic lunch; we didn’t bring any food from home we got take away instead. And to top it off DH has not been feeling well so we got some soup. All up the eating out and buying food we spent $73.20.

Free Dinner – Not only did DH got few free lunches last week and the other week, he also got free dinner and drinks on Friday night. His whole team got invited out for dinner to celebrate a job they did two months ago. He and others did had to spend few hours for that weekend two months ago to do some work for it, DH only had to do his part at home, so yeah well deserved for them.

Internet – Few months ago and then another last month we got mails from our (now previous) internet provider letting us know that by early November they will be disconnecting our internet and home phone services unless we switch into their NBN service. NBN is the National Broadband Network, which is essentially fibre optic cable rolled out across the country. Originally it was proposed to roll out fibre right up into each home, but this was later changed to just use whatever connection already exists at the home for the final part. In our case since we had Telstra cable installed in our house by the previous owner, that is what we are getting. This is similar to what is used for cable TV in the US, and in fact can also be used for cable TV here. The NBN is a government owned company which provides the infrastructure, and then you go to a retailer to buy the actual services. That way all retailers use the same infrastructure and have to compete on price, customer service, and quality of service provided (some retailers don’t provide sufficient bandwidth so get major slowdowns during peak periods). The company we signed up for seems to be quite cheap and also doesn’t seem to have the slowdown problems.

When DH signed up, he found a promotional code that got him the first month free, and they double our data allowance for the first 6 months! Also there is no lock-in contract, whereas some of the bigger providers lock you into a 2 year contract. The price will be $65 per month the same as our previous internet cost but since we don’t have to have the home phone anymore it will be saving us $15 per month. It will be less than the unlimited data we have been using for the last year but a lot more than what we used to have prior to that which was 120GB, now it will be 500GB but for the next 6 months it will be 1000GB.

When DH called the previous provider, Optus which we have been with since 2001, they tried to make him pay a $160 early termination fee as they told him he was on a 2 year contract. This was rubbish for 2 reasons: 1. they told him last year when he changed plans that he wouldn’t be put on a contract; 2. they’re the ones telling us we need to change service or we’ll be disconnected. DH spoke to a different person and they have now agreed to not charge the disconnection fee.

My brother’s girlfriend had a little girl yesterday, I’m an aunty again. We will be visiting them in Tasmania in November.

Onto financial matters –

Groceries – All up it amounted to $72.45 just a tad under budget for the week. $18 of it were on cleaning and laundry products, I tend to only get these once or twice a year.

Free Lunch (Is there such a thing?) – DH has been attending workshop at work and they have been providing lunch. Last week he had 4 of them and he got another 3 and a half days of it this week.

Property Rates – We got a new bill statement for the 2017-18 and it is increasing to $1913.89 – last year it was $1873.70 – we will be paying it monthly ($191.34) for the next 10 months.

Been sick and not been in the mood for cooking this week.

Again it has been a quite weekend I guess we are still recovering from our trip.

Grocery - $49.38

Mother’s Day – All up we spend $122.39 on gifts

Lunch Date – We went out for lunch on Saturday for Chinese and coffee and cake afterwards, all up $36.40

Wines – 6 bottles of one of my favourite wines $44.70, bought bulked because normally they cost $10 a bottle.

Saturday we went to shopping for food, we didn't get (nor do we needed much), spent $37.41.

Went and watch my brother play footy again, it was his 50th game, they won again 202 to 26, I think it was. Only spent $1 for a cup of coffee there, we actually took some sandwiches and some fruit that we got shopping that day to have for lunch.

That night we got invited to someone's 65th birthday. Bought a card for $1 and gave $50 cash gift.

On Sunday the only thing that got charged was my mobile phone, it get automatically get topped up when my credit gets below $2. That was for $10.

Total spending for the weekend was $99.41 - it's good to see it under $100.

The weather this weekend was almost perfect, we should have picked this weekend to go camping, oh well can't predict the weather.

Saturday we decided to go and watched my brother play footy, his team had a fantastic game they won by over 200 points (248 - 13), that rarely happens. while there we shared a sausage roll (haven't had one of those for years) and a cup of coffee each, was for only $5. Their game was held near a trash and treasure market place so decided to stopped by to see if I could get a case for my new mobile phone, found one for $10. We got there late in the afternoon so we didn't have to pay to enter which would have been $1 each. Also got a wheel that we can use to fix our gate, $2. And spent another $2 for a dog leash for my mum's dog. Afterwards we went grocery shopping, all up spent $65.39 on grocery this weekend. Went home, made Paella and opened a bottle of wine with it, read a book while doing a bit of crocheting.

Sunday we went out to get a new washer for a tap outside. Then we went back to the shoes store that we got DH's new shoes last weekend to get it replaced because there was something wrong with it that I didn't see until we got home. When we got there we found out that they are now on sale, it was almost 65% off, from $49.95 down to $18. So instead of exchanging it we got a refund and just purchased two pair of shoes (different style) for $36. Then we stopped by at another store nearby and got a jumper for DH, underwear, bra, toothpastes, hand towels and DH's favourite bar soap. All up we spent $27 there. Then lastly, we went to Big W to get leg bands they were also on sale from $15 down to $10. Total spending for the weekend = $163.55.

When we got home DH fixed the tap while I made roast pork and then we watched our footy team play on TV, we lost. Had dinner. Relaxed watching more TV and finished reading my book. End of weekend.

On Wednesday DH took the car to the shop to get repaired, that cost us $264 but DH will need to take it to get the ABS looked at. The mechanic can't fix the ABS, it will need an electrician of some sort.

Thursday afternoon we decided to cancelled our camping booking because the weather was going to be terrible, we were heading to the Highlands and the weather was going to be snowing, wet and windy. Just unfortunate because the weekend before that the weather would have been perfect. This trip was planned about 2 months ago, when we got a voucher for it. I think we will go in October instead now.

Luckily, we cancelled it because on Friday when DH and I decided to go out shopping (DH was home because he took a holiday on Friday for the camping trip), we noticed a lot of liquid/oil pouring out of the car as we were driving out of the driveway . So instead of going to the shops we just drove it straight to the car repairer. The repair shop is closed to an Asian store so we went there instead and got some stuff (spent $14.15 for a bit of stuff good value for money) and just walked home (less than 30 mins away).

Apparently, when they were replacing something in the car on Wednesday they accidentally bumped something off. It was an easy fix but the car was there for 3 hours. Lucky we found this out while we were near home and not while were camping. DH didn't noticed anything when he drove the car back home Wednesday night so it didn't get trigger until we drove it out that Friday. Now we have a trail of fluid all the way from the garage to the road and maybe even all the way to the repairer place, by the time we got there it ws empty.
Saturday we did our proper grocery shopping, we went to Aldi and got Milo at Woolworths, all up we spent $64.45 on food this week. And then we got something for Mother's day and also got myself a couple of jumpers and a pair of socks. The jumpers and socks only cost me $21. Also got DH new work shoes but we will need to go back and get it replaced.

On Mother's day we went to my mum's place and had a bbq my brother was there as well and we all got a lot of left over to take home.

We had a relatively quiet weekend. Our car was making some weird noises so we didn't wantto drive it too much. We just went grocery shopping and dropped off some stuff to the Salvo, which was just a crossed the street of the Aldi that we went to. Spending for the weekend was less than $100.

DH already booked the car for service on Wednesday. Its next service is not until next month but since it is making that noise and we are going camping this weekend we need to get it check before driving it 3-4 hours drive to the country.

DH spent some of his weekend applying for jobs. The rest of the weekend I spent tinkering in the garden, DH helped a bit too. He loves being outside, it was great to see him a lot more relaxed on the weekend. He was a bit stressed out again on Wed and Thurs night, he keep wondering whether he has done the right thing quitting. I assured him that he did and that we will be alright. From what he has been telling me about his work I am 100% sure that he is doing the right thing. So far this year DH counted 15 people that has left (that's about 1 a week). He has seen 3 people this year that cried because of work issues.

The other developer is now also considering of leaving earlier than end of June, she doesn't want to take on DH's job. She knows how much ha was to do and deal with, not only dealing with the customer that they support but also dealing with the boss (DB). She's also thinking of travelling in mid-June. Not sure if she will actually do it but she has told few people about already.

DH got a couple of lead today about some work so hopefully something will pan out soon.

Crap the roof is still leaking. Luckily we decided to not to fix the hole in the ceiling yet because when it rained on Saturday we found that it is still leaking. So we decided to just make a bigger hole in the ceiling to see where the water is coming from, we should have done that in the first place. So we found another tile that is broken, we can clearly see where the hole is now. DH thinks that he might be able to change the tile from inside the house rather than having to go up on to the roof. We will have to wait when the weather is good, too wet at the moment. The drip of water is just going straight to a bucket it is not hitting any timber so there will be no further damage to the ceiling.

Apart from that we had a quiet weekend. We stayed home on Saturday, the weather was terrible anyway. We watch our footy team played, we won! Yeee...

Today (Sunday) we went and watch The Avengers, before the movie started someone got sick, I think they he an epileptic fit and they had to call the ambulance to take him to the hospital. After the movies we went grocery shopping to Aldi, spent less than $45.

It has been a busy week. It was my birthday last week. We spent a bit of money. To say it was a spendy weekend is an understatement. But I scored some really cool presents. DH spoilt me on my birthday. We over indulged, it wasn't planed but we truly enjoyed it anyway. The best thing l got is a Samsung Note with S - pen . It's a nifty gadget. DH picked it, he did all the research and found a pretty descent deal online. He found one that was $130 cheaper than that were in the shops. I'm absolutely loving it. I've used all of my saved allowance money for it and the rest will come out of gift category of the budget, $160. My allowance money added to just under $500 and then the in-laws gave me $100, which I added in as well.

Another thing that got is a new phone, I have now officially joined the 21st century. That was for $88 unlocked, so I'm just using the same sim card as before. I don't think I will bother getting a data for it yet. I will just use our wi-fi at home. I don't think I will be using it much since I have the note and laptop to use at home. And if I'm away from home 95% of the time I'm with DH so I can just use his. My friends also spoilt me. I got Gold class tickets to the movies, a book gift card, a bottle of wine and mum got me a mattress protector.

DH also took me out to dinner on my actual birthday and then we went to a winery with some friends and also to dinner with some of them on Saturday night.

Oh I forgot to mentioned (just really busy at the moment) that DH put some money into the mortgage to get it under $20K. His mum told him that they don't need to borrow money to paint there house. The weather at there place is so crazy at the moment, their power was off for few days because of the massive storm they got. A lot of people in there area is flooded, luckily for them they are on top of a hill. Anyway, I think they will just wait until the weather is warmer again to get it done. DH used the tax refund and that extra pay this month to put $5,600 which make the mortgage balance down to $19,974.99

House Alarm Battery
The battery for our house alarm needed replacing. I think the last time we replaced it was over 5 years ago. DH bought one after work and was easy install for him to do. The battery cost $50.

Broken Roof Tile
We had to get someone to replace a broken roof tile. Luckily we already got some spare tiles around. We paid $50 and it only took him 10 minutes to do it. It was worth it. Another two quotes we got were for $150 and $250. Normally we do a lot of repairs ourselves but DH is not too keen on heights. He can get up a ladder but he won't actually get on to the roof. The broken tile was just out of reach for him to do. And he absolutely would not let me get up there either. $50 was a lot of money for 10 minutes work but it was necessary. Now we will have to fix the ceiling in the guest room where there is a little water damage because of it.

STOCK
The shares that we purchase last month through Share Purchase Plan (SPP) was settled the end of last month. The plan that DH and I decided was to sell half of it right away so we can get part of our capital out. We got the maximum amount we could get but didn’t want to keep too much of it long-term. Since then it has just been going up so we decided to wait and see where it might go until on Wednesday last week we decided to sell some but since it has gone up a bit more than expected we decided to only got 1/3 out. The 1/3 got us almost 40% of our capital back, so we are happy with that.

WEEKEND
It was a costly weekend. On Saturday we did the usual grocery shopping for the week and then went to Bunnings (hardware/garden store) to get some netting for the garden. We got those white cabbage butterflies/moths around and they just love laying their eggs on my vegetable leaves. I thought putting netting around them especially the cabbages and cauliflowers would be the best way, don't like to use sprays. We end up getting a really big size because it was half price and best value for money, only couple dollars more than the smallest size. While there we saw that they have a greenhouse on sale for half price as well, from $50 down to $25.

Saturday night we were invited to a 50th birthday celebration. It was held in one of those reception places normally more for weddings. Actually, been to this place back in 2001 for a friend’s wedding, unfortunately it is not what it used to be. The food were terrible, DH thought he had the worst steak ever. Everything was over cooked, I think they reheat things and that's why they end up so over cooked. It was a big party around 150 guests, it would have cost a lot. We just gave $100 cash as a gift, I had no idea what to get. They hired a photo booth and we all had fun with that.

Sunday we decided to go to a Trash and Treasure market, spent $34 which includes $2 entry fee for both of us. Got $10 of 4 tubs of seedlings, they were about half the price instead of getting from a nursery. I remember to back here next time. Also got 4 pot holders for $2, couple of plastic tubs, few metal brackets and a plaster saw for $1. The best thing we found a glass lid for our fish tank for only $4. Back in December we got a bigger fish tank from a friend but it didn't have a lid so we have been looking for one since then. The lid is millimetre perfect for our tank. One of the biggest things we got on the weekend and were a bit pricey was 6 rubber mats for the gym area in the garage that we are creating. It totalled just under $180 but it has been the cheapest thing we have seen out there.

On Sunday we also both got a haircut. I really needed one. All up the weekend expenses were just over $550. This coming weekend is not going to be cheap either.

Easter Weekend

Our long-weekend was pretty quiet, we did more work outside as clean the garage (half-way through it now). We did go out and did some shopping, we got a new little bbq and a small foldable table that we can use outside and should be able to take camping as well. They were both on sale. While shopping we ate out for lunch to a fairly inexpensive Chinese/Dumpling place. Apart from that we mainly stayed home and watched more Breaking Bad – it was BB marathon weekend for us and now we have finished it. We will probably now move on to watching "Better call Saul".


Financial

Normal monthly mortgage payment went through and the interest paid for this month was $112.17, so principal paid was $1,105.80. Balance right now is $25,574.99.

I did a calculation of our net worth for the end of the first quarter and we just hit $700K. That was a nice increase from the last time I looked at our net worth.


Garden

The cabbages are now about double in size and the cauliflowers are doing well. And the beetroots and beans and also starting to shots up. There are more kales and snow peas seedlings that have come up but the coriander are dead except for 1 and even that is not looking to good. And those seeds that DH planted are not happening.

Day light saving time finished on Sunday and now it feels like winter. I don't like it.

I did not go anywhere on the weekend. The only time we spent money was Saturday night when DH went out to get pizza, Pepsi and milk. All up it cost $21.75.
We spend all weekend working outside again. We are trying to get things done outside while the weather is still warm. We planted some more vegetables. We planted some cauliflowers and also decided to plant some seedlings; I do not know how well they will go some of them might be a bit old.

Most of our weekend was spent paving a little area in the backyard for the big rubbish bin that we have. We have some paver just laying around so it was good to make use of them and it tidy up the backyard. It took a while to level the area but we got there.

Saturday night we spent watching more Breaking Bad and that's when we decided to get Pizza for dinner and open a bottle of wine. Sunday A.M. we spent finishing the paving and in the afternoon to until 10pm we spent watching the final of world cup cricket. Australia won against the Kiwis. Yay!

Potential Loan

Friday night DH called his parents. His mum asked if they could borrow $3K if they need it. Long story short, they got money it's just it might be hard for them to get it out in short notice. They are getting their house painted (outside) but it could happen next week or it could happen in 3-4 months. If it happens in 3 months they won't need to borrow but if it happens sooner they will be short in cash because their money in term-deposit at the moment. Normally they have more cash than they need but because they just bought a new car this month they have dried up the savings account. We are more than happy to help them out, they have helped us a lot in the past when DH was unemployed. So the money that I was thinking of putting into the mortgage (extra) we will just keep for this. This is the extra pay that DH will receive this month. I will still put the tax refund money into the mortgage. If they do end up needing the money we will encourage them not to pay it back. We both just want to give it to them. We have offered to give them some money in the past to pay back some of the money that they have given us but they always refused. So this will be good time to pay them back.

Tree Stump
We finally got the tree stump and roots out. It has taken us over 2 weeks working on it a bit every day. It is a very heavy bugger so we just left it in the front yard. We are not sure what to do with it, we talked about making a feature out of it or just put it in the rubbish. I think we might have our annual green rubbish collection in May, I'm pretty sure it was in May that they collected it last year. I won’t be surprise if we get the notification for in next month. If we throw it out DH will have to cut it smaller they will not accept it at this size, too heavy. DH should be able to use the chain saw on it now.

Garden Bed
Most of soil that we dug out we used to build a couple of raised garden beds. We just added some chicken manure and mushroom compost. So far I have planted snow peas and kale from seeds in our usual veggie garden patch. In the new garden beds I got some seedling for it, so far I planted lemon grass, coriander and cabbage.

We will be building couple more garden beds, just need to clean more of the bricks. It takes a bit of effort to do I'm not in a hurry so just doing a bit every day.

Grocery Shopping
We did some food shopping this weekend. We went to the market to stock up the freezer. Then we went to Aldi to get the usual food items we need for the week. And then lastly, we went to another store to mainly get toilet rolls and other things that we couldn't get at Aldi.

At the shopping centre car park, we ended up waiting for this lady to get out so we could get her car park space. When she finished putting her shopping in the car I offered to put her trolley away, just to hurry things along it was easier for both of us (and I gave her a dollar to swap for the dollar she had in the trolley). She could get out quicker while DH could get in to the space while I put the trolley away. Anyway, she left her receipt in the trolley and there was a discount of $10 off for the store we were about to go and there were other discounts for their liquor store as well. I didn’t even knew that they do those discounts in this store but I think you have to spend over $200 to get those, which obviously she did. I knew about the liquor store discount but hose normally involves buying 1 and you get another 1 free type of discount. So the $15 plus shopping only cost us $5 or so. It paid for the toilet rolls. I find that a lot of people tend to just leave their shopping receipts in the trolley and I tend to just pick them up and put them in the bin. I will be checking them a closer from now on.

Yard Work -
We spent most of our weekend doing yard work. I was hoping to do some planting but instead we spent most of it digging out a tree stump that is in the front yard that is pushing the brick wall fence. We end up destroying a row of a brick edging in front of it, we had to it is the only way to get to it. I'm not too worry about destroying it because we need to re-do the yard anyway. It has needed it for years. We had drought here for a long time that destroyed a lot of our plants. Because we were in water restriction for a long time we didn't bother doing too much with it. Our water restriction these days is a bit more relax and we can actually water our plants now. And I have been buying more drought tolerant plants from garage sales in the last 2 years. It will take us months to do it but I'm hoping we can get it done by next summer. First thing is to get this massive tree stump out. It's been over a year since we cut it and have been poisoning it few times but it is taking forever to die and now the next door neighbour is complaining about it so that's first priority at the moment.

With all this bricks and soil around I decided that I will make garden beds out of them, I just want to experiment with it. If it turns out good then maybe I'll make a permanent feature of it in the backyard.

Saturday Night –
We went out with some friends for a 9 course meal with wine at a Thai restaurant. A friend that organise the get together bought a voucher so it was only $39 per couple. But parking in the area was highway robbery and it didn't help that our meal went on for 3 hours. It took 1 hour for the first dish to come out, so DH had to go out in the rain to put more money in the meter, ended up spending $12. It is a terrible area there is not many options for parking so the council just take advantage of it. We are not going to that part of town anytime soon. We all joked about maybe the restaurant has a deal with the council to get people to spend more on parking. Oh well, it was still great catch up. One friend I haven't seen since last year.

Sunday -
We went grocery shopping, didn't really get much (don't need much); grapes, onions, milk, eggs, potato, chicken and 10 kil0 bag of rice. We still got plenty of rice but they were selling for half price, thinking about it now I probably should have got 2 bags.

Coffee & "Business Meeting"-
While at the shops we stopped by at one of our favourite café, it is in the same shopping centre. Lately, we have been coming to this café once or twice a month. We like to come here and have a "business meeting". Business meeting for us is talking about our finances especially our stocks/stock market/investments. When it comes to our trading/investing we are both very involve with it. We both like to see what each other thinks about a certain stock, should we be buying, selling or just holding, etc.. We have also been discussing a lot about our mortgage and other financial stuff. This time we talked about getting our mortgage down to $20K next month. It is kind of the thing that I want to get /celebrate for my birthday next month. And we think we should be able to do it if we can get our 2013-14 tax refund (I'm 90% sure we will get it by then), that would probably be around $2000-$2500 after accountant fee. We calculated that we will need $5,500 to get to $20K. So the rest we can get from the 'extra pay' next month. It's not really an extra pay, it just happens that DH will get paid 3 times next month instead of only twice (forth-nightly pay deal thing). So if we use that 'extra' pay next month we should be able to do it without derailing out other goal too much. The other goal is to hoard cash in the bank (around $20,000) just in case DH's job contract might not get renewed in June. We got around $13 at the moment.

Stock-
We mainly talked about one of our stock that is doing a Share Purchase Plan (SPP) at the moment (due 24th of March). We talked about whether we should participate in it and where are we going to get the money from? Luckily, we have sold some stocks this year and we actually have enough to fully participate in the SPP. The SPP price is about $2 at the current price. The plan is to get the maximum amount and then sell half of it as soon as possible to luck some profit and then keep the other half long-term. This is one of our best performing stock so I am happy to add more of it in our portfolio.

We both really enjoy our meeting in this café, great atmosphere for it. The coffee is great and they have nice assortment of cakes to go with it. The servings are large so we normally just share a large coffee and slice of cake (DH decided to get NY cheesecake this time). All up it was $13.90. DH offered to pay for all of it out of his allowance since he was the one that really wanted the cake because I was still full from lunch but when it got to our table I still ate a bit of it so I said that we will split it. I actually have a lot of allowance saved up than him. Apart from weekends I really don't have chance to spend it before when I was working part-time it use to get spend a lot on coffee and snacks. I've actually now accumulated $500 but I have big plan to spend a big chunk of it for my birthday next month.

Oh my, this is a long post.

Monday was public holiday here. We spent most it doing some needed work around the house. It was good to tick off some of the items on the 'to do' list.

Saturday we talked about going to the movies to watch The Hobbit and then going out for dinner, I have been wanting to watch it since it came out here on Boxing Day but something else keeps coming up. Since then we have seen a couple of movies with other people none of them was into watching The Hobbit. Unfortunately, when we checked the session time it wasn't on anymore. I actually checked it the week before and it was still scheduled that weekend so they might have just taken it off. So we had to go with Plan B instead. We decided to borrow Season 4 of Game of Thrones and got some Chinese and opened a bottle of wine instead. It was a lot cheaper than going to the movies and eating out at a restaurant. So in between doing work around the house we watch Game of Thrones, 10 episodes for only $10 rental.

We also went out to do some shopping. We decided to get a new quilt and cover. The new queen size bed is a lot thicker than the old one so we decided to get a king size quilt and cover. I've always wanted to get a bigger size bedding to solve the problem of us fighting over it in the colder months. One of us always end up hogging the whole thing, I don't think we would have that problem this winter. Got a pretty good prize for it, just over $150 for an Australian wool & made quilt, quilt cover and 2 pillow cases.

I just harvested the last tomatoes and the basil is now starting to flower so it is also nearing the end. We got so much basil don't normally get these much but this year has been great. I made some pesto last night and had it with some pasta. I'm trying to use it so we can start planting some winter crops.