Yesterday I made the first ever balance transfer payment on the new 0% card. Have done a spreadsheet, kind of like Petunia and Banker Gurl have been doing, hopefully I can work out how to upload it here.
http://www.savingadvice.com/blogs/image.php?blog=5822&id=13587
Interest got charged on my normal credit card (aka CC1) with the amount being $14.72. MUCH better than the usual $53-60 per month! Of course, no interest at all would be even better 
I also repaid that interest plus $10 repayment, so CC1 has $115 owing now, and 0% Balance Transfer card has $3947, a total of $4,062. Progress is good.
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Last week was a low spend week so when I did our weekly spending transfer there was still $70 in the eftpos account, so have paid that against the money owing back to the EF. New amount owed back to EF is $205. This weekend is also quiet, so hoping to throw a little bit more against that.
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Yesterday I was planning on buying a $20 work shirt, but walked through a department store to get there, and they had a good brand shirt (Cue) marked down from $125 to $37.50. Their shirts are great and longlasting so did not have a problem spending the extra $17.50. It's so funny because last month when I was going to buy the $20 shirt I walked through the store and ended up getting the good quality one really cheap instead! Kind of like fate.
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Another thing that happened yesterday was Mr Money Mustache posted an article which I saw in my newsfeed which talked about the lifestyle choices he makes - for example never driving except far away. He was talking about people feeling like they "have" to "do" certain things, like drive here, drive there, which means that they're spending extra gas money when really they could walk to a lot of the places they go to. It's all about the mindset. You don't "have" to "do" everything everyone else does.
So my frugal thing today was after walking the dog, I walked to the shopping centre to get the items needed for dinner. I checked my phone when I walked out the door, and then checked when I got to the shopping centre - 10 minutes walking time. Compared to 5 minutes driving time. No petrol used, no fumes created.
Dinner tonight is salmon, brown rice, sweet potato and capsicum (peppers I think you call them) mixed in together.
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In terms of groceries, I am still doing the deal where you spend a minimum of $100 for three weeks in a row to get a $30 gift voucher. Have done the first two weeks, onto the last week. Last week's groceries ended up being high because I had to buy dishwasher balls and got some extra meat, so am hoping to spend only just over $100 there. Have already spent $15 so far though, so will need to watch the spending to ensure that we don't go too too far over. Don't want to be spending all our money on groceries after all
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Here the weather is glorious. It's a sunshiny 18 degrees (64 Fahrenheit), so am enjoying it before we get the cool weather change - is supposed to be 13/14 all week (55/57 Fahrenheit)
Another great thing is some of my favourite fruits are coming into season - got 2 big punnets of strawberries for $3 last week, so spent the week eating strawberries for dessert, and preparing strawberry smoothies for breakfast, and learnt about how to get them to keep fresh for longer so was cutting them up the night before, patting them dry and they were fine the next day. Yum. Looking forward to the mangoes going cheap soon too!
Hope you all enjoy your weekend!!
Credit Card Payment 1 Plus Other Stuff
August 22nd, 2015 at 07:38 am
August 22nd, 2015 at 03:11 pm 1440256296
Do you hold yourself to a list when buying groceries or prefer to choose what 'looks good' or what appeals at the moment? I fear I've become too rigid, I believe the research applies to me, the longer time in the grocery the more I manage to spend. lol
August 22nd, 2015 at 10:04 pm 1440281099
I'm not sure about how much has been expended from the start of the year on interest because I haven't really been tracking it but at a guess- CC1 $55 (average) x 7 + $15 (Aug), CC2 interest for year $60 (only started getting charged last month), balance transfer card annual fee $64 (got the bank statement last night after writing this post - this has been the only charge though, there was no balance transfer fee) - so to sum it up $524 conservatively. These dollars definitely could be used in a better way!
Shopping- I hold myself to a general list but because I have been watching the prices so long I know what is cheap. So for fruit and vegetables I have some that I always stick to but some things that I choose the in-season items. Apparently it's cheaper and fresher. Meals I plan loosely. Example is this week we have lots of eggs so tonight is egg & bacon pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables. We actually have enough meat for the week and lots of bulk items so I'm planning on buying the bare minimum and then getting good priced meat or extra bulk items to make the $100 minimum spend required. Or as this is the last week of the deal just buying the minimum on Monday and then doing next grocery shop on Saturday or Sunday to fall within the Monday to Sunday $100 spend. Sorry for rambling- it's good to mix up your food to take advantage of in-season food and as you already have a great eye for price you can do it affordably, feel free to be less rigid with shopping occasionally.
August 23rd, 2015 at 05:32 am 1440307938
August 23rd, 2015 at 10:28 am 1440325683
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August 24th, 2015 at 07:44 am 1440402256