VS-from-Oz's Personal Finance Blog

I got my Virgin credit card statement today and was happy to see that for the last month I've been using it regularly and repaying it regularly and no interest was charged this time. After the balance transfer was repaid a couple of months ago I used it pretty much straight away and interest got charged so I held off on using it, now I'm glad to see that interest is not being charged just the way it should be.

Apparently I now have 602 velocity points. These can be used towards Virgin Airways flights or redeemed for gift cards. I looked up points to redeem gift cards, for 9000 points you can get a $50 shopping gift card.

When I get a spare second (like after the exam), I will look into ways to boost points. Four days of studying to go, hopefully I can remember everything.

Oh I have 6 NSDs now and I know tomorrow will be a NSD (unless an unforeseen and unavoidable emergency happens).

I don't know when your thanksgiving is but I am reading posts about it, so I hope you all have a safe and happy thanksgiving!

Life is super busy here, I am in my 12th week of this online subject and the exam is next Monday. I've also had a good friend move house so we have been having going away get-togethers, and have been helping her with the move; then had another old friend's 40th on Saturday night.

I've been keeping up with the coursework but will have a pretty intensive week of studying to brush up on various bits and pieces. This studying of economics really gets you thinking about productivity and efficiency just to name a couple of things.

I haven't told my work I am studying as yet because I didn't know if I would continue the studying and would rather tell them when I know that I can do it and stick at it. (Sticking at it is the hard part because even with the best time management other parts of your life get left behind and public holidays crop up and then studying becomes hard). So they don't know, but I will need to take a sick day to go to the exam.

I do have snowflakes to report but I think I will just do it at the end of November, much easier.

Please accept my apologies for not answering back to the comments on my last post guys! I am looking forward to not being frantically busy all the time and being able to interact with you guys a bit better again.

Also, I'm hoping Imasaver is ok, was just thinking of her.

Challenge starting balance: $8,840.21
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- digital change $2.85
- Safeway everyday rewards $20.00
Challenge closing balance: $8,898.75

The weekly EF savings got withdrawn, some more digital change got transferred to the Christmas savings account and then I redeemed $20.00 in Safeway everyday rewards tonight while getting some groceries - we only have $10.00 left there now.

The Christmas savings bank account is currently at $96.98, will be over $100 very soon. It may not pay for all of our presents but every bit counts. For example my main Christmas present that I would like is a gold bracelet to replace my fake gold bracelet, the cost of it marked down is $149 - I tried it on today and it looks nice. These savings could very well pay for that.

Speaking of Christmas presents, B wants to get a sticker kit for his motorbike at $300 (I'm told they will last a very long time though!). I told him he can order it, he is really very good with not wanting too much I don't mind a splurge now and again.

Just think, if I did this next year from January we could possibly effortlessly pay for Christmas...

On Thursday I had a NSD, then yesterday I was feeling pretty tired from having my friends over on Saturday night so decided not to do any grocery shopping and just use up what we had, and we had plenty of leftovers so it was fine, so then was able to add another NSD to the challenge! I could possibly make Wednesday and Thursday NSDs also - need to get petrol and the balance of the groceries tomorrow, so if I plan well enough that could be it until Friday.

I really need to do some more savings transfers soon and credit card repayment etc so you will see another entry soon.

Mrs Frugalista got me thinking about the no spend November challenge. While I'm not doing nearly as well as her, yesterday was my second no spend day and tomorrow I plan on making it my third.

The fact that you are planning to spend on certain days only does make you think about what you are buying, and you tend to plan more. If I can get 10 days this month, that would be great.

Today I bought enough food for the next four days for us, groceries came to $56.61. I am then planning on not spending anything tomorrow, buying a tshirt on Friday and then buying required food on Saturday - I am hosting a small get-together with my friends so will need to pick up more food.

I have already got mini-quiches for hot food(we are doing nibblies and then later on putting some hot food in the oven, everybody will bring something each) and am doing a spinach dip in a cobb loaf for nibbles. Will no doubt buy a few more things but just a couple of extra things really.

On another note, I just paid some bills and among them was our water bill, which was a case of bill shock - it was up 45.51% from last year! Roughly $100 extra. We went through the bills and checked the gas meter, but later on I compared October's weather this year to last year and it turns out it has been much colder this year - we had 18 days where the heater was required to be on, compared to 9 last year when the weather was much warmer. I'm hoping we get a couple of months weather where no heater or air conditioner is required - November hasn't been too bad, I don't think we have turned the heater on since Saturday.

Challenge starting balance: $8,779.91
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- digital change $3.61
- Safeway everyday rewards $10.00
- Melbourne cup winnings $11.00
Challenge closing balance: $8,840.21

I've been pretty busy lately so I think my goal at the moment is to just write a little bit about whatever happens each day.

The Safeway four week shopping challenge (where I had to spend $90 per week at Safeway for four weeks in a row to receive $40) has ended so there was $40.00 sitting there to be deducted off my shopping bill. Today I bought some groceries worth $13.80 so $10.00 was automatically deducted - I have then sent it off to the Christmas savings, along with digital change for the weekend plus some winnings for the Melbourne Cup.

The Melbourne Cup is a horse race and a big event in Victoria and we get a public holiday from it. Just for fun I chose some horses and while I didn't actually place a bet, I allocated the winnings to savings. Christmas savings are now $74.13, looking forward to reaching $100 on the weekend.

On the weekend I also sent $10.00 to the UK owing amount, it is down to -$80.00.

That's all, hope to talk soon tomorrow!

Challenge starting balance: $8,739.85
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- digital change $4.37
Challenge closing balance: $8,779.91

Our weekly EF savings were transferred over as usual, which is great but the two financial things of note were:

1) Our mortgage payment hit, and then interest was charged, the end result is we are now into the $117's!! New balance is $117,703. Very exciting. I don't think we will make $115k by the end of the year, but I do think we will make it to $116k.
2) My tax refund was received and was promptly sent back to the EF. The balance looks much healthier now! Breathing a sigh of relief.

Looking at the EF; the mini-EF is now $3,504.55 - this is the cash portion of the EF. The maxi-EF has only gone up $1 since last month! This is the shares portion of the EF. Thankfully the shares have only dropped a little bit; they were purchased for $3,826. So if the shares were at their purchase value the EF would then be $7330.55 instead of the $7,177 it currently is. Still it's great to be up into the next thousand, it feels like it has taken all year to get there.

***

Non-financial things were during the week we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary, then yesterday it was a beautiful spring day so we caught up on the gardening at home. We then said hello to our neighbours across the road and we had heard that the wife had changed jobs; she told me she was made redundant in the July of this year and it took her a full month to find a new job. She is the sole provider for her family; her husband has an illness so looks after the kids while she works. I told her I thought it was great that she was only out of work a month; she is really liking her new job.

Today we took our inlaws out for a country drive and we had lunch with them (I suggested this because we have spent the last couple of weekends with my family so thought it would be a nice thing to do), which was a really lovely day.

Challenge starting balance: $7,748.09
Plus:
- weekly EF savings x 2 $71.38
- Safeway rewards $10.00
- digital change $2.93
- Maxitrans dividend $10.50
- B's credit card debt repayment $180.00
- B's tax savings $403.33
- Phuket holiday savings $235.00
- my car savings $150.00
Challenge closing balance: $8,739.85

September was a huge month not only for bills but also because it was a five week month so October has been pretty lowkey. We repaid back the savings used to pay the bills and reduced our weekly spending in October to offset the overspending in September.

Still, I've had a bit of low-level anxiety with our money this month so have held off making savings transfers etc. Now that it is the end of the month nearly have felt like we could do it and be fine.

Among our snowflakes was a Safeway reward of $10, received today. That plus the digital change was sent over to the Christmas savings account; there is now $45.13 there, will top it up to $50 at the end of the week. Another snowflake was the Maxitrans dividend (small dividend but it is a small shareholding).

We sent another $180 to B's credit card - it is now sitting at owing $3012 - will be under $3k next month which is exciting.

I finally got around to lodging our tax returns last week! I will get back $1073 which will go back to the EF to repay the study unit; B owes $2780 from his business income which is due March 2017. This month we have saved $403.33 towards it.

I also saved $235 towards our Phuket trip; $1065 remains owing to be paid whenever we decide to go before September next year.

I also sent $150 to my car savings; normally should be $300 but we overspent a little this month so reduced it slightly. $124 was also repaid against the study unit.

While it would be great to be sending all of this to the EF, sometimes we have things which need to be paid (like B's tax) and things we should save a little for (like a trip which is booked).

****

Saturday's happy events were:

1. My sister and her husband sold their house for $70k above reserve at auction, which they were really happy about. My BIL is a MMM (aka Mr Money Moustache) convert and wants to retire in 5 years time (he'll be early 40s then). They are moving to the country and want to build a sustainable home so the extra $70k will definitely help their plans. Auctions are so exciting.
2. It was our 6 year wedding anniversary so we went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate .

Hope you're all well!

It's been an intense week. I had a massive assignment due on Sunday so spent pretty much every ounce of my spare time working on it from Tuesday to Sunday - about 12 hours. I find it interesting but felt bad about not really being present around DH. Was nice to spend this evening just relaxing and spending quality time with him.

I wish my work were open to me working 4 days a week so I could spend one full day studying instead of trying to cram it into every spare second of my free time but alas they have made it clear that they are not. Oh well, we can't have everything.

Anyway, after spending so much time studying I couldn't look at it yesterday, instead caught up on home duties after work that were much needed. Walked the dog, hung out the washing, caught up on dishes, cleaned the ensuite (really needed it), folded the washing, I think that's enough until next weekend. Need to go to the gym because I haven't been there in a while and then need to catch up on week 7 of study (last week, not heaps to do) and work on week 8.

*****

B has been sick on and off with the flu, went to the doctor for a flu shot and found out he has a combination of hay fever and asthma???? Not in his family history, we never expected this. They say it's only mild so we'll see how he goes with the puffer. He also has had a shoulder problem so has been given steroids for a few days and a referral if it doesn't get better. Doctors will be about $30-$40 after government co-pay and medicines were around $50. Let's hope he picks up soon!

*****

My spending yesterday was $4.12 for some watermelon for me, tomato soup for B and some chocolate for me, and $20 for fuel for my car - today was a NSD.

Another spending item yesterday (although not a cash outlay) was a $3.99 iTunes subscription for one month to Money magazine (it's Australian) because although I love flicking through the various areas of SA (articles, blogs, forums) it's important to occasionally spend some time reading Australian financial items.

Well that's all for now, speak to you guys in a few days!

Challenge starting balance: $7,581.56
Plus:
- weekly EF savings x 2 $71.38
- Safeway rewards $10.00
- digital change $22.14
- QBE dividend $63.00
Challenge closing balance: $7,748.09

It's been a while between entries, have been super busy with this studying and trying to keep all the other areas of my life afloat too. I have to do 10 hours per week study, and last week as it was a public holiday we went away and therefore I only managed 6 hours.

This weekend is a very quiet weekend so will most definitely be catching up. I have made up last week's 4 hours, so tomorrow and Sunday I need to do 5 hours each day. I would have done more during the week but catching up on home duties after work took up some time. I'm looking forward to spending some blocks of time to increase my understanding of the material; have been so busy I feel like I'm doing the work but not really retaining anything or understanding much.

***

Because I didn't write an entry last week I didn't note down the EF savings, so this entry I have put two weeks in.

The supermarket chain I have rewards with, Safeway, have reintroduced their old rewards program again, so after spending the required amount (I think it was $100), I got $10 off the shopping, which I sent to Christmas savings. They have introduced their biggest rewards deal ever since I have been doing it - spend $90 per shop there for four weeks in a row to get 8000 points ($80.00 off the next shop). We've spent $37.76 there so far this week, have $52.24 to go, which can be done on the grocery shop for the week.

Trying To Get Ahead with all of her change jars prompted me to do an experiment for the month of September and I have been doing it still. What if every transaction from our checking account we round up to the next dollar and deposit it into our savings account? I know somebody wrote that there is an app for that, but I didn't find it in Australia so have just been doing it manually. So far we have saved $22.14.

We also received a dividend of $63.00 for our QBE shares. They are currently way down in value so I am considering buying another 100 but that would bring our cash down a bit so am sitting on the fence. Our averaged out purchase price is $10.70 per share and they dropped down to $9.33 which is a year low. (It was also a big loss so I was a bit worried) Now they are currently just under $10, so still lower than normal but at least we have not lost as much now. Will see what happens over the next month before deciding. Was actually going to buy in about January, give the EF a chance to build up a bit.

I also added $8.00 to the holiday fund, so the balance there is $-90.00 now.

***

This month we are on a five week month so funds are a little bit short. Our usual spending money is $580 ($500 into our checking and $80 onto B's card to cover his work expenses and takeaway) so have decreased it this month to $430 per week into checking and $65 onto his card; so usual monthly spending money was $2320, with these adjustments and an extra week included it only increases to $2475, which is not too painful.

We did work out his tax though which will be $2780 due in March, so have to save $463 per month. Ouch. Oh well, it must be done.

And also need to start saving $250 per month towards Thailand. And hopefully we can still afford $300 for my new car fund but we'll see. We need to start saving for Christmas so may need to shift some money out of certain categories to make it happen.

According to my Christmas saving challenge we need to save $330 this month, and so far have $32 saved however it is only the first week of October however I may even re-examine Christmas spending money and cut it down slightly.

Challenge starting balance: $7,545.87
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
Challenge closing balance: $7,581.56

As written a few days earlier, I finally paid off all of my credit card debt and was looking into earning some sort of reward for using credit cards now.

I linked up my Velocity Rewards account to the credit card as you can earn points, however while I knew the credit card had a high interest rate it is supposed to have 44 interest free days.

So it was completely free of any charges on Wednesday as per the website so I used the card on Wednesday night and repaid the transactions the next day. There was a total cost of $28.72 charged on it (for groceries).

So I have just received my credit card statement and have been charged $0.65 interest??? I don't care about the amount but why have I been charged interest when there was no previous amount owing? Unless I had to wait until the next monthly period before using the card?

I doubt I will want to sit on the phone with the credit card company to discuss $0.65 but I may hold off using the card for the rest of the month and then use the card and see if interest is charged when the card is used again. If interest is charged without the interest free period then I will probably keep the card as an emergency measure only and close it off after a while once I have found a replacement.

Challenge starting balance: $7,353.93
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $46.00
- my FINAL credit card repayment to balance transfer card $110.25
Challenge closing balance: $7,545.87

That day finally came where my final payment to the balance transfer left the bank account! I imagine I will see a zero balance on that card either tomorrow or the day after.

Only $54 left on my normal transactional card to pay by the end of the month, will do this easily. (In a week or so, must get used to using the balance transfer card as a transactional card to accumulate points.)

I'm so glad to be off of that debt cycle where I was getting charged around $58-$62 in interest on a debt I couldn't afford to pay. I'm so glad I just had this moment where I had had enough and wanted things changed asap, and got the balance transfer card and got off the cycle of simply paying interest on things which had long been used up. I appreciate credit cards now because you can have funds available at your disposal no questions asked, but do not ever want to get complacent with paying interest again. I want to be much more careful with it now.

Feeling like I'm in a better place than a year ago, that's for sure. Next month onto saving for a new car! (that I hope to not have to buy for a long time!)

***

I paid the third round of my football wins over to the holiday fund; now owing only $98. Also paid back $124 against the study unit. Study is going well but I'm finding myself a bit time poor and when I get tired, I'm worn out. Luckily this only happens every few days. I'm into week 4 and not doing too badly.

***

On Saturday my car door broke, this time my driver door. This is an ongoing problem; has happened between 5-10 times in the time of car ownership and each time it happens I cannot lock the car until it's fixed. The last time it happened was April last year.

The cost of a new lock was $200 plus some beer as a thank you gift to my father-in-law for fixing it $31. Better than $400 at the mechanic which is the going rate. This is the last time my father-in-law will do it though, as he is getting too old. Next time it will be either B or the mechanic.

Because funds are a little tight I used the additional money I was going to repay on the mortgage to pay for the door lock. Didn't want to draw out from the EF again, once this month was enough ($160 for the sewer blockage).

I really want to get the mortgage down to $115,000 by the end of the year and it looks like all other things going ok, we should be able to.

As written in my previous entry, my credit cards will be repaid in full by the end of the month (woohoo) and I have been trying to work out what to do with them.

My balance transfer card is actually a velocity rewards card (Virgin Airlines), so today I have linked up my credit card to my velocity rewards account, then in October when the debt is completely cleared I will start using it to accumulate points. Obviously paying transactions back as soon as possible to avoid being charged interest.

The annual card fee of $129 is valid for one year to use as a credit against a flight also. I'm interested to see what my points balance in a year will be!

Challenge starting balance: $6,835.74
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $48.00
- my credit card repayment to balance transfer card $151.50
- B's credit card repayment to his card $180.00
- extra credit card repayment to his card $103.00
Challenge closing balance: $7,353.93

This week's additions to the challenge are the usual EF savings, plus football winnings for games 4-6 from my team (these were all fairly low wins so could add them all together), plus repayments to both my and B's credit cards.

With my credit cards, I am all set to be officially retired from credit card debt by 30th September. That has a nice ring to it, I must admit!

There are some small transactions on my credit card I use amounting to around $77 for 3/4 of a tank of fuel (which I pay back at $20 per week) plus some cosmetics I needed to buy.

There is the anticipated $110 remaining on my balance transfer card plus I have been charged a $129 annual fee for this card.

Which brings me to reassessing what I want to do with this card after it is paid off at the end of the month.

I had the idea of either earning cashback rewards on various cards after the cards were paid off to actually bring some income in after paying credit card companies interest and whatever charges for so many years; or getting a points card and using it to earn rewards.

Now that I have to pay this $129 I'm thinking I may as well keep this card open for a while to utilise the annual fee paid. I've kind of had a shift in thinking of my thoughts about credit card debt too, so I have to consider that.

The thing is our EF is generally at the moment around $7000 give or take a few thousand. So really the credit cards when they are paid off are technically an asset because they are credit available to be used at any point in time if needed, no questions asked.

So if there was a major emergency ie I suddenly lost my job we would be able to use the cash saved in the EF possibly to pay mortgage and bills and use the credit cards to pay for food and other necessities; and we would most likely have six to nine months emergency money available as opposed to two to three months with the cash only.

Perhaps I might revisit the points/cashback ideas in six months or so. Would need to change at least one credit card in any case. My everyday credit card I use has a 14% interest rate (best rate possible for the big 4 Australian banks) while the balance transfer card has a 21% interest rate - so will need another card to replace that with a much lower rate in the next few months. I could increase the credit available on the 14% card, but really I would rather get a lower rate card from a smaller institution - you can get around 8% cards.

Sorry for the super long post guys, I'm just trying to formulate ideas and plans and put them in writing to refer back to later! Feel free to add any thoughts or suggestions.

With B's card I paid the monthly $180 and then referred the balance against what I had in our debt paydown spreadsheet. According to the spreadsheet his card should be at $3192 - it needed an extra $103 repaid to reach this amount. Next month he will be owing just over $3000.

Challenge starting balance: $6,642.80
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $58.00
- plumber visit -$160.00
- addition to mortgage principal $259.25
Challenge closing balance: $6,835.74

The above transactions took place; weekly EF savings got deposited, I transferred over my team's big win (yay!), withdrew money for the plumber visit and added $259.25 to the mortgage being for June interest $559.25 less $300.

My team is now out of the finals so September is purely making up for the first six wins (if possible).

I also checked the EF balance on the 1st and have updated the sidebar. The mini EF is looking a little small because it is $2771.16 less $1445.94, less $192.00 (however on the upside thanks to the big win we are now below owing $200). Must get the tax return lodged and the $1073 back!

The maxi EF (the shares) dropped about $100. The MXI shares which I bought at $0.585 spent a couple of months well below what I bought them for- around $0.45, which I was not thrilled about. On 31st August though they raised up to $0.61 which is a bit of a relief.

The QBE shares which are the bigger portion (think $3200 compared to MXI $600) instead have dropped down! They are currently around $9.97- the average price I have bought them for is $10.70.

The main thing is, even if there is not a profit at the moment, there is no big loss.

***

September is a huge bills month - we are looking at around $1500 in bills which will stretch us. We could pay them but cannot also save our usual 10%, which doesn't thrill me.

I'm thinking I'd rather we pay half this month, half next month as we have no bills really in October. Then in November we start paying the monthly averaged amount of $4011. Much less stressful that way.

The mortgage got paid yesterday and interest of $548 got charged, bringing the new balance to $118,915 - we've moved on from the 119's and we're now in the $118's!!!!

I was really hoping we could hit $115k by the end of the year and it's looking like if we can put $500 extra in for October, November and December we could close the year at $115,571. (The $500 extra per month is as per the mortgage challenge on the sidebar).

Would be really awesome if we could close the year out in the $115's!!!!

Our weekend was mostly pleasant with the exception of having a sewer blockage!

B noticed on Saturday that the kitchen sink wasn't draining so had a look at it but couldn't fix it. On Sunday I was doing the morning dishes and it just wouldn't drain at all. B had a play around with it and first outside flooded and then inside flooded! We cleaned it all up but then B realised he couldn't fix it so we got his uncle to come today to have a look.

It turns out we have two sewers- one for the kitchen and because our house is long the other is for the bathrooms, toilets and laundry. So thankful it was only the kitchen that went!

His uncle came and then someone else had to come out to finish the work- total cost $160.

As September is a hugely expensive month this is going to be purely a withdrawal from the EF. To me an EF covers emergency needs (house, car, health) and unemployment assistance. Therefore this event falls under that umbrella. I will also reduce my challenge by that amount accordingly as this has been a reduction in savings.

Challenge starting balance: $6,598.11
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $9.00
Challenge closing balance: $6,642.80

Our weekly EF savings got transferred over and I transferred $9.00 from my teams last football win over to the EF.

I still owe the first six games from when I was saving for the trip so if I can I will add them to the challenge in September.

I've decided that starting from the first week of October I'm going to do the 12 week $1000 challenge for our Christmas money, so I am stopping the football challenge at the end of September.

Sure I could just save the money but this is more fun!

I call September "Scary September" because we have high gas & electricity bills plus property rates plus roadside assistance. Plus plus plus basically.

In the interest of balance I decided to work out exactly how much we pay in bills per year and then divide it monthly and simply allow for that amount each month in the hope of avoiding the horrible September month.

We used to do this years ago and it worked well, so hopefully it will again. We did this up until B started his business and cashflow became very erratic for quite a while. Now that he is back earning a steady income we should be able to revisit this habit and hopefully breathe a little bit easier.

I'm not going to list the items we pay for or the amounts because frankly it's depressing! We just have to keep watching various things to try not to pay too much. (Eg our house insurance came in last month and has increased by $10 per month. We don't mind paying monthly as there is no charge for this. Anyway I compared the policy against some other insurers and found it is reasonable so we will stay with them)

Starting October, we will set aside $4011 (this covers all housing costs - mortgage, insurance, utilities, all car costs - loan repayment, insurances registration, cell phone costs, motorbike loan repayment and costs, and various other bills) per month.

Hopefully next September will be much more manageable!

Remember how I wrote about something going wrong with the Internet and not having wifi a couple of weeks ago?

Well I was in the middle of doing some budgeting and had a look at the September 2015 budget and our internet (iPad) bill was $200 higher exactly one year ago due to the wifi dropping out!!!

It shouldn't be this year as we realised in time but am I the only one who thinks that there is a bit of a conspiracy going on here or what???

Does anyone else know of things like this happening?

It's been a pretty quiet day too, not too much to report.

My to-do list today was:
- walk the dog (had to do this early on as it's been rainy today)
- washing (the remaining three loads)
- vacuuming (I spent an hour vacuuming floors and places where spiders may hide and vacuuming and wiping the window sills in the front half of the house)
- grocery shopping (not good value for money today, the only things on special were fruit, muesli bars and gravy; we spent $129 as well as $11 for some hotdogs for B's poker night next week)
- cooking biscuits and soup and pasta for lunch (made the choc chip cookies which turned out ok, about to do soup for dinner; think I'll do the pasta for lunch tomorrow night)

I also added the study unit negative amount to my sidebar to remind me to get to work with preparing B's tax return so I can get my refund and reimburse the EF.

That's about all, think it will be an early night tonight!

I haven't really bothered with to-do lists lately but the other night I was watching a tv show where they had a to-do list and thought I may reincorporate that into my weekend (weekdays are a bit harder for me).

Today's to-do list was:

- Body Balance class (I did this and this class is always so great, it's a combination of pilates and yoga with meditation at the end; I always come out with a smile on my face)
- Washing (we are set to get rain for the next week, have already had a large amount yesterday so this task was completed early on in the day so hopefully things dry in time)
- Folding clothes (got last week's washing folded, nothing sitting around in baskets for once)
- Cleaning (spent 45 minutes cleaning bathrooms, tidying up through the house and dusting. It's a necessary evil!)
- Organising the desk in the study (it's been pretty abominable so last night I bought two in-trays after work, one for filing and one for things to deal with; organising and throwing out documents no longer required took 45 minutes; the desk looks oh so much better!!! It's organised and I am so glad I accomplished this task)

All in all, it's been a pretty good Saturday, I feel like I've been productive. I wanted to go somewhere tomorrow and do something cheap and fun, maybe a drive and have lunch somewhere not too flashy but B has come down with the flu so that is out the window.

I bought an iTunes card for us to watch movies and decided I wanted to buy a CD for my phone so I guess this is my fun thing for the weekend! And baking and cooking various things tomorrow!

Well, must go cook our dinner - indian butter chicken and rice with garlic naan bread .

Challenge starting balance: $6,436.17
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- balance transfer CC payment $110.25
- mortgage principal payment $16.00
Challenge closing balance: $6,598.11

Today true to my word I woke up 15 minutes earlier. It's amazing how tired I am with the 15 minute difference, it means a lot I guess! Should be used to it soon. I have to go to bed soon also, which is the other thing I need to get used to.

I used that time to pay the bills, B's speeding fine ($190)(ugh) and his driver licence renewal ($267).

Yesterday morning when I got up early I ordered my textbook ($140.94). My credit card is now just below $2000 which was nearly giving me an ulcer so I transferred the full cost of the study unit and textbook ($1445.94) from the EF. I did not spend 1 year 1 month (so far, next month is the final month) repaying credit card debt to become lackadaisical about large amounts sitting on the credit card, don't want to end up back in that hole! No way no how.

Seeing the cash balance in the EF after doing the transfer is now giving me an ulcer though, so need to get B's tax return sorted asap so we can lodge and I can get the $1073 refund to put straight back in the EF.

After work I went to the shops to get some food for dinner but also decided to do CB's 10 items idea. For $34.54 I got ravioli for dinner, liquid hand soap, toothpaste, meat for the dog, bread, peanut butter, potato chips, coffee pods, almond milk, mini chocolate bars and garlic bread. Ok, I got eleven things. We are running really low on food at the moment so need to build the pantry up a bit!

Goodnight all!

Yesterday I woke up half an hour early to start adjusting my body clock to the new sleep schedule. Although I got my usual 7 hours sleep I was still pretty tired throughout the day but I noticed the most tired I felt was the first and the last 15 minutes of the day.

My plan is to spend three days waking up half an hour early, then three days 45 minutes earlier and then the last four days an hour earlier. My body should be in a routine then.

When I've been waking up earlier I've been doing things instead of just sitting there slowly waking up. Yesterday I put a load of laundry on, today I had to make my lunch because it got too late last night and I needed to be in bed by a certain time. Tomorrow I'm actually going to start going on the computer before work to get into that habit, of getting my mind to work in the study sense. Tomorrow I will be buying the required books for the unit, then on other days I will get B's tax stuff ready for his tax return so we can get our money back.

The other thing I've been doing to form my new study habits is reading something on the train in the morning which is not Facebook or blogs etc. This week I'm doing it in the commute only, next week I will also be doing it on the way home too.

This change of habits has definitely kept me busy!

***

Financial goings on is over the past two days my only spending was $28.50 for the balance of our groceries, $99 for the week. We will need to buy something for dinner on Thursday night when our spending money gets deposited though.

Saturday I got my hair done then went out with my mother to have afternoon tea with my sister for her birthday, which was a really nice outing.

We actually got some good weather on the weekend and our garden has been much in need of some attention so yesterday we mowed lawns, weeded, cut back some overgrown bushes and hosed down pavers and decking in the pergola area. It looks so nice now.

I did a bit of grocery shopping, spent $70.86. That's not all of the food we need to get, but I'll get things as we need them.

We then had a hot tub to enjoy our nicely cleaned up yard .

***

Yesterday was also the closing date for enrolment for another study unit in my accounting degree. After a few discussions with B, my mother and a bit of thought, I decided to enrol. It is a good opportunity doing something I like where I can realise my potential and also earn a good salary.

My job is interesting but part time studying as well as full time work becomes a 60 hour week, so work/life balance becomes really important, and studying on the weekend was not working for us (meaning quality time with B, and general upkeep of the house, not to mention my stress levels).

But then I used an app to track my time and realised if I can get up an hour earlier and use my 30 minute train commute each way that is 2 hours per day studying, and I like that idea better because this is happening in my work week instead of encroaching on my weekend which I don't think will work long term.

Last night I went to bed half an hour earlier so was able to get up half an hour earlier without any problems and pretty much felt fine today, just a little tired. Hopefully forming new habits makes part time studying a bit easier to maintain .

The unit cost was $1305, need to do my tax return now to get the $1073 refund to put towards it. I paid on my credit card so that needs to be sorted out soon.

They said 3-5 days for the $100 phone bond refund to be received and it came through yesterday which is really great. I promptly transferred it back against the holiday fund, so we now owe back $259 there. Getting there slowly.

After work we went to the camping store where B got vouchers for his birthday and got a camping toilet, had to pay $40 out of pocket.

Then we got my sisters birthday present ($18) and some groceries ($6.30) and some wine for me ($19).

After that we went home and had a quiet evening. Remember how wifi got turned off and I resolved not to turn it back on? Well I had a bad moment, was desperate and tried to turn it back on! It didn't work, appears something is not working so I am still on minimal Internet. Maybe it's not the worst thing after all?

Challenge starting balance: $6,329.46
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $71.00
Challenge closing balance: $6,436.17

My football team had a much bigger win than anticipated! Some creative accounting was involved because I am getting my hair done tomorrow and $71 was a bit hard to swing. In the monthly budget I put that we would put $40 towards the holiday fund so included that in the $71 and put $31 over from our spending money.

Now that B's car loan is reduced and we are paying $180 per month it is time to watch closely what he is spending. We put $80 on it per week to cover car washes of the company car and takeaway but he spent $116 so I transferred $36 from our spending money over. I also repaid my $38.50 bag and $13 being the final part of the coffee machine.

Work was much better yesterday. Random emails and phone calls had me looking into things I don't normally deal with, it was quite an enjoyable day. Finished the day off with a good workout at the gym .

Yesterday was a quiet day on all counts. Work is super slow at the moment in my area - not a lot coming in and my boss is on holidays so not much coming in from him either. I had to string work out and look busy. I wonder if that means that once it starts coming in there's going to be a deluge? Time will tell.

No money was spent anywhere so it was a no spend day.

B got a birthday card at his new job that everyone signed so he was very happy with that.

Then we went to bed at 9.30 and had an early night, which is always good. I may have spent an hour gaming on my iPad but I still got an early night .

Quiet days are never a bad thing as long as there aren't too many of them!

Last month when I deactivated the global roaming on my phone I was told I had to wait until after the 7th August to request the $100 bond refund. Annoying but anyway, yesterday I spoke with it and requested it. They put the claim through and said it would take 3-5 business days.

***

Was still considering study so decided to prepare my tax return for the year ended 30 June 2016 to see if I would get a refund to put towards it. The unit would cost $1445 including books and I will be receiving a tax refund of $1072 once I lodge it. I need to prepare B's tax return too and have no idea what the outcome of that will be as he closed the business down 3/4 of the way through the tax year and got a job. We'll see.

As for studying - the financial side is sorted but it is a gruelling schedule with full time work so it's highly likely that that I'm going to pass on it. It's a hard choice - to study to get qualified will mean I'm not working at a fraction of my potential once qualified however working at my current level (bookkeeping) means I'm not living a fraction of my life! While studying I can't do the things I love- spending quality time with my husband, family and friends; camping and travel. That's the toll of 60 hour weeks and I'm not sure I want to do that for years on end. Enrolments close on the 14th so I have until then to decide.

Part of the reason why August is so spendy is because it's B's birthday. His birthday was not a special year so we didn't throw a huge party this time, but we still did lots.

He went motorbike riding with family at one of his country friend's houses which is on 20 acres of land. Fuel for the bike was $18 and he spent $15 on a bbq lunch (he also bought breakfast on the way though).

Then on Sunday we went out to lunch with all of his family, which was a nice day. $32 for a cake, $54 for lunch for us two and $35 for drinks. I actually had $80 for drinks in cash but won $45 on the poker machines so that offset the spending!

Then yesterday, Monday was the actual birthday. I bought B a box of chocolates and a nice card. I got his birthday present a few weeks ago so didn't need to get anything else. Last night we went out for dinner on a double date and his friend was joking to the waitress and asked if B got a free drink because it was his birthday and she replied "no he gets a free meal!". We totally didn't see that coming!

The restaurant was a bit pricey so even with B's free meal and 10% discount, it was still $65. It was a lovely night though.

***

I've had on my wish list a while a new work bag. My work bag is so old the material on a lot of parts is completely worn. So every now and then I check Myer's website to see if they have a sale. They have the best quality bags here, they last for years.

Well yesterday they did! They had 30% of all bags. Normally I go for black or darker colours but there was nothing below $129. They had a nice caramel coloured bag for $109 (not my usual colours I choose, but I just thought it was a great bag). I got to the checkout and when the lady swiped it the price went down to $55 and then I got 30% off!!! Total price: $38.50!!!! I was doing a happy dance.

***

Thank you everyone for your well wishes, my neck has pretty much healed up now. I haven't had to put any ice gel on today, which is good.

Now I just need to repay the $122 in chiropractor fees, the $38.50 bag and $40 in miscellaneous charges by the end of the month if I want to reach my goal of having nothing owing on my credit card by the end of the next month.

I can do it, I just need to curb the spending! Wish me luck guys. I am practising restraint now.

Challenge starting balance: $5,773.06
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $15.00
- fortnightly balance transfer payment $151.50
- repayment to B's credit card $180.00
- mortgage topup $174.21
Challenge closing balance: $6,329.46

We have a very spendy month in the bills department so this will be the majority of the snowflakes.

Weekly EF savings as usual, football game winnings from two weeks ago both went to the savings account.

My balance transfer credit card balance showed as $523.50 owing, which is less than the $614 balance there should be so have reduced the monthly balance transfer payment from $303 to $261.75, with $110.25 to be paid in the second fortnight of the month.

Next month by the end of the September I will have no credit card debt!!!!

What a turnaround from a year ago. Then in October I start to save for a new car (hopefully don't need to buy for a long time!).

I also have put $180 towards B's credit card debt and have added his credit card debt to my credit card debt paydown spreadsheet. We were able to afford the $180 payment due to his reduction in the car loan which he refinanced. According to the spreadsheet, his debt will be repaid in March 2018.

I then paid $174.21 against the mortgage principal (goal 1 on my sidebar). May mortgage interest was $563.61 and $89.40 had already been paid towards the interest. $263.21 - $89.40 = $174.21. We can't afford to pay two months this month, but as it is we should be into the $118000s next month which is good.

***

Non financial stuff (ok kinda financial): I am having my first sick day in 3-5 years today. Yesterday I hurt my neck (long running injury which flares up occasionally) and when I woke this morning could barely turn it to the right so knew I had to go to the chiropractors asap.

My sister lives a block away so I parked my car there, had coffee with her and got to see my toddler nephew; then went to the chiropractors.

As I am so stiff he could only work on me for about 10 mins, so I have to go back in 2 days time and in the meantime use Ice Gel four times a day. I booked a Saturday morning appointment, he said as for work to just play it by ear.

The charge for today was $64. Time to go put more Ice Gel on and watch a bit more tv.