Hi all, I have been a bit slack with recording the 52 week mega money challenge payments for weeks 3 & 4.

In week 3 it was a public holiday, so I decided that as public holiday weekends are generally a bit more expensive I would save the smaller payments for these weekends.

So with week 3 I paid $25 on my cards (two-thirds on Virgin, one-third on NAB) and $20 on B's card.

For week 4 we paid $62.50 on my cards so I have listed that my share has been paid for the $125 week. I have split the payments into one-third on my NAB card and two-thirds on my Virgin card; this has been based on the proportion of both cards owing at the start of the challenge. We then paid $102.50 for B's card so I have listed that his share has been paid for the $205 week.

B is about to get his first pay from his new job so we will be able to do our new monthly budget - I have worked out how much the 52 Week Mega Money Challenge works out to per month for the two of us and it is $574. This is a lot of money however we have a lot of credit card debt and it is a good idea to get in control of it.

With other credit card news, last week we finally got the letter from our airline advising that they will not be making any overseas flights next month (when we were supposed to go overseas) so we are now eligible for an 18 month travel credit or a full flight refund. Due to the uncertainty of it all, we opted for a full flight refund; so we were advised that $3012 will be getting refunded onto my Virgin credit card in around 12 weeks time. While I am sad we are not going next month, it will be really nice to clear most of the balance of that card.

I have lots of other money news so will probably do lots of other blog posts about each thing. Speak to you all soon!

Very happy to say that yesterday DH got offered a job!

He had a second interview on Friday with the company's general manager and got offered the job yesterday.

He did have to take a $10,000 pay reduction however paycuts are happening right across the industry so we were prepared for that and were fine with it. What he is getting paid is still good for us and we can continue to live comfortably.

He starts next Monday, and it makes him unemployed for just under a month, which isn't too bad at all in this current climate. We're just so happy that he got something so quickly. He thinks the people are ok too, so fingers crossed it all goes well.

We will have a bit of the redundancy package to spend on house items and save away, which is good. At this stage we are unsure of how much will be left as his employment contract says he is paid one month in arrears so we need to see what happens there.

We had pizza for dinner last night to celebrate .

I have decided to embark on a 52 week mega money challenge to repay back both of our credit cards, will write more about that later in the week.

For now, we are just enjoying the lack of uncertainty!

Our state had our restrictions eased today however not as much as other states. While cases have dropped dramatically in Australia, our state's cases have had the highest rate of new cases (14 overnight while other states have had 1).

Mother's Day was yesterday and other states eased their restrictions on Saturday so there were many celebrations. Our State Premier held off announcing restrictions until today which angered many people as they could not celebrate with their families. I think it was the best choice though because while the cases are dropping we are still in a pandemic and nothing is back to normal yet.

Our restrictions are still roughly the same- workers have still strongly been encouraged to work from home where possible, however now we are allowed to have up to 5 visitors in our homes and hiking, golf and other exercises which are non-contact and non-close contact are allowed.

I have missed my two closest friends so we have arranged to have a get-together at my house on the weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice so we will sit outside. In light of it still being a pandemic though I have said I will not be serving any food or drinks and we should not share food or drinks, so BYO whatever you feel like eating or drinking. It will only be a bit of a catch up outside and there will no hugging or kissing on cheeks obviously. So excited!

I have read something today about the amount of money people working from home have been saving on commutes and have realised that for this month we would have spent about $140 on my train ticket. I did not include this in my budget and am just thinking that perhaps while I work from home to leave this aside for an expected increase in heating and electricity costs. The government has said that employees working from home can claim a deduction for home office running costs however this won't be received until after June 30 (our tax year end) whenever we lodge our tax returns. The actual gas and electricity bills will be received before that though so it might be a good idea to set this aside.

Are any of you saving money due to working from home during Corona Virus?

Couldn’t think of a name for the blog post so Wednesday Ramblings it is 😊.

We have been going ok with our reduced redundancy budget.. I’ll call it that because that’s why we’re trying to stretch what we have. Of our $410 from last week the last of it got spent today. Groceries were just under $150 and of that we bulk bought sausages and lemon pepper chicken pieces. They are saying meat is selling cheap here however I saw it going cheap a couple of weeks earlier- we got 4 schnitzels for $2, 2 x Malaysian coconut chicken skewers at $2 each, lamb sausages for $2 and kangaroo meatballs for $2. Lately it’s not so cheap. However I know from past experience that when you are on a reduced budget meat can tear a hole through it so my aim is try and bulk buy as much as possible.

DH went for an interview last week and has a different interview this week. He is applying for jobs daily however is up against a lot of applicants. For example today a job closed and they revealed 137 other people applied. Meanwhile while we are trying to stretch what we have for as long as possible his family are trying to push us into buying shares to make money! DH got pretty upset because his family are totally not on our wavelength and are super comfortable. While we can last a while before unemployment benefits are required and it does not look like we are anywhere close to losing our house, we are most certainly not going to put our money into a volatile share market... much better to see clearly what we have for each month.

Today my employer contacted us to say that he qualifies for the JobKeeper subsidy (an Australian government initiative which pays businesses $1500 per employee per fortnight that they forward on to the employee so that the employer is relieved of paying their wages for up to 6 months). He did not say anything about our jobs or wages in the email and spoke more about using the money to cover IT costs and to get us to upgrade our home offices. I didn’t think JobKeeper would be replacing my income because of this but still called to clarify and luckily I was right. I completed the form and then decided that the things I need to bring my home office up to standard is a stand for the main monitor to bring it in line with my head height and another monitor as my work likes us to work with two monitors. B (DH) is going to work with me over the weekend to clean up the home office and set it up and hopefully we will get reimbursed for this soon.

My boss also offered to put me back on to 5 days a week which was really sweet as he knows B is unemployed now. I have been working Fridays as I have been behind and finally made the time up, and was looking forward to having my Friday back (plus am stressing about my course i am behind on). I thanked him and let him know I would think about it, but just want a bit of a rest this week. If B cannot find work and I went to 5 days per week it would be an extra $800 pay per month and I would probably have to do my course and bookkeeping business stuff on the weekend. For this week though I need a bit of time to rest.

In other financial news, an Australian financial institution has come under fire for readjusting the amount of money their customers can have in their mortgage redraw without telling them and putting the excess funds on to the mortgage balance as a repayment! Some people lost up to $24000 of available funds and it has sparked outrage because some people needed that money and were simply parking it for the time being. As soon as I read that I instantly moved part of B’s redundancy package we parked in our offset account into a different savings account not linked to our mortgage. Scary stuff.

In non financial news I am missing our cat like crazy. It was 2 months today. My mind is rational and says it was her time and it is good she is not in pain anymore but my heart still can’t comprehend she’s gone and there is a big hole there. Of course we’re very thankful for the 18 years of wonderful memories but it’s still hard. Our dog has recovered really well from her eye problems which is great, she is not in danger anymore. She’s nearly 18, who knows how long she could live to? (She still has quite a bit of energy)

We find out on the weekend if lockdown restrictions in our state are loosened however even if they are I don’t plan on doing much while this virus is around and we are heading into winter next month here - will probably lay low for the next few months.

It seems like whenever there is good news lately it’s immediately followed by bad news lately.. for example I had an idea with my business and got my client to agree to it (officially signing up my services and signing an agreement to have regular payments to me direct debited), then the day after I found out the cat was dying.

Sooo.. last Tuesday I spoke with the client and we arranged to meet the next day (social distancing of course). I had been in contact backwards and forwards with the direct debit company and had my account set up and all ready to go. (My idea with my bookkeeping business is that it is actually an ongoing process with regular work, rather than accounting which is often a once yearly job.. here in Australia it is becoming popular to charge clients with a monthly package fee rather than hourly which I like the idea of and have decided to implement; and my thoughts are that if you are charging a set rate it would be great to have the payment direct debited from the client’s account rather than me chase them up). So the great news is I have set up the direct debit form, my new client engagement letter and most importantly signed the client up 😁. The client is a tradesman and based on the number of transactions he needs done per month he is on the lowest package of $110 per month (roughly 2 hours work per month), and he has opted to have the direct debit withdrawn weekly, which is just over $25 per week. That’s my happy news - I was super happy to have an official client signed up and a few business processes implemented....

So that was a big high for me that I am thankful for.... but the next day life laughed at us.. B found out that he is getting made redundant.... so he is now one of the 1/4 of our population out of work..... super stressful times.... he did quite well at his job and made it to a low 6 figure salary so the redundancy package he received is quite good. He received 8 weeks (including unused holiday leave of 1 week), which I have roughly worked out could last us 6 months on a super tight budget (provided nothing goes wrong) before we have to dip into savings. Let’s hope that he can get a new job soon though..

Sidenote: B went in to his work on Monday, returned the company car, phone, tablet and any other company items. He heard past coworkers say that when they quit they had to wait four weeks for their holiday pay. We didn’t want to go through that so I checked the employment laws with Fair Work Australia and found that according to his industry all final payroll entitlements must be paid within 2 business days. Thankfully they obeyed the law and we had our money on Tuesday afternoon.

We have had 2 other times in our past where our money situation was pretty dire - both when B had the business and injured himself and was unable to work and income protection didn’t pay, so we know how to live off small amounts of money. Our new budget until he gets a job again is $160 per week for food, $50 for takeaway and $100 spending money each. Spending money includes alcohol, petrol, clothing if needed, beauty items if needed.

I have also included $300 per month for things that might come up - for example our dog’s eye specialist appointment was on Thursday and that was $150, so half of our incidentals money until the 15th of next month is gone.

I worked out on our tight budget we need $3545 per month from his pay, and that we have approximately 6.5 months of his pay before we need to use savings, apply for unemployment benefits. We will still apply for unemployment anyway though as B received his employment separation certificate however I imagine it will be a while before we see any money from the government as they make you use up your payout first (which we are).

I moved $10k of the payout to the mortgage offset account (because we may as well reduce interest if we can), and all the other months to another account. To keep things simple we will still make payday 15th of the month (each month we set aside spending money and deposit a certain amount into our EFTPOS account on the same day of each week).

We hope B will find work soon - he is being good about applying for jobs either daily or every second day, and making sure he is up each day so if he gets called in to interview he is ready to go. There aren’t many jobs out there though and there is a lot of unemployment which is scary....

Wish us luck in these hard times... While we know what to do to get by, it is still hard... So thankful for this site to help keep me focused and all of your tips you have and share..

I have so many financial things to write about I could blog daily for a month but free time is minimal (especially leading up to Christmas) so I'll just stick to one of our larger financial matters.

Probably one of the biggest things we've been dealing with lately is adjusting to both being paid monthly on the same day and re-tweaking the budget. In DH's last job he got paid monthly at the end of the month while I get paid monthly in the middle of the month. It kind of meant that we could set aside an amount for bills and withdraw weekly our spending money without worrying if we had overspent really because there was always another pay coming in in the next fortnight.

Then when he changed jobs in May the payday changed to the middle of the month. It was fine in the beginning because we had a little bit of extra money to fall back on, and then I had the broken collarbone so we weren't really overspending because we weren't going out much and we knew what we had was going to doctors and hospitals etc.

By August and September though the extra money had been spent and we were starting to go out more so we actually started running out of money because the buffer we had got used up. In the month of September we actually ran out of money within the first two weeks so the remaining two weeks were not fun at all! It was then that I decided that our current budgeting system had to be tweaked especially as it looked like we were going to run short in our bills account which is a big no-no for me.

We have two bank accounts that barely get used so I decided that we would have the set monthly amount for mortgage and bills left in the bills account and whatever money is left over to be spent on things we both agree on, repaid on credit cards if needed and the remaining money to be divided by four or five weeks (whichever is relevant for that month) and transferred into one of the bank accounts we don't use. The other bank account we don't use is now used as a holding account for short term purchases we want to make (example: the month of October we put $1000 in for our Perth spending money and $400 for the back tyre we were replacing on the Harley).

This updated method has definitely reduced my stress levels as I know what we can spend weekly and there's less likelihood of running out of money. Because we overspent for a few months the credit cards also have balances which we are repaying but I am saving that for another post.

I was listing the events that happened each week and keep getting my weeks mixed up, so that's all getting a bit hard! The point is I'm now back in the groove of writing weekly so I'll keep that up without listing each week's number.

Since I wrote last I've been to my post-operation appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon and he believes everything is healing in the way it should, which is great. I've been cleared to drive and resume normal activities within reason but must wear a sling in crowded places. Every day I'm healing a bit more. I'm now going to weekly physio appointments up until the final post-operation appointment at the start of September.

The good money things which have happened is we have found out that B's final car loan payment is next month! As previously agreed, I am going to take part of what we would pay each month and put it towards savings towards my new car. His payment is $742 per month - I would like to get a car for around $25000 in four years time, so worked out to do this would need $520 per month. Hopefully my car will last that long - the engine is pretty good but it is now 15 years old. Need to pick out and organise an internet account with a high interest rate soon 😊.

Now for the bad money things.. as well as having surgery which we had out of pocket costs for to the tune of roughly $3000, we last week decided to make two large purchases (the security doors for $3000 and the exhaust for the Harley for $1200). This would have been fine over a few months. But on Monday night the hot water service blew up. Grrr. That is $1500. Then a night or two later the dishwasher jammed up and it looks like it is a problem to do with the computer board in it... our savings are pretty much cleared out from the hot water service and exhaust so we are washing dishes by hand at the moment. A dishwasher is not a necessity and there has been so much money spent lately the thought of spending more is making me ill. This situation is looking kind of like the spa purchase last year where we repaid the credit card back over four months. Once I have final costs I will work out how much we need to repay per month.

All the same, even with the above expenses I am still determined to set up an account for the car and set up a monthly savings direct debit into it. The thing is, if you have a car loan you will always have to pay it monthly no matter what the situation is so I want us to be disciplined to save in the same way.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about falling off a motorbike and having a sore shoulder. I simply thought it was bad bruising, a soft tissue injury, however have found out that it was a broken collarbone which completely snapped in two and separated about 2cms apart!!

I really have not been in a lot of pain so it was all very surprising. It was also why we didn't go to emergency and get it all fixed straight away.

As I'm not in a lot of pain the public healthcare system hasn't put priority on my injury. The doctor referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon but said as long as the appointment is within 3 weeks that will be fine. The surgeon he referred me to wasn't available until 24 July and my nurse friend told me that is way too far away: I'm at risk of a worse fracture or it healing up wrong, needing surgery and requiring it to be re-broken in the process. Ugh.

I found a reputable surgeon who was available four days later and saw me last Tuesday. He strongly suggested surgery (joining both bones up with a plate and 3-4 screws).. I don't want it however he has said that it will take 4-6 months to heal with no guarantee of the collarbone rejoining, so then surgery would be required anyway. Therefore I have agreed to have the surgery, which takes place tomorrow morning.

It could have been a day surgery but the surgeon said to stay overnight does not cost much more and it is better to be monitored on the first day so I can get appropriate pain meds. Also it is an hour's drive from home so could be a very rough journey home straight after a surgery.

We are using our private health insurance for this as it is a time-sensitive issue. So far these are the costings:

Physio $105
X-ray $113
Orthopaedic surgeon consultation $110 ($200 - $90 refundable back from Medicare)
Orthopaedic surgeon surgery fee $1435 ($2158 - $723 refundable back from Medicare and private health ins)
Anaesthetist estimated surgery fee $750
Private health ins excess for hospital (surgery & staying there afterwards) $500 (private health ins then pays whatever the balance is)

TOTAL: $3013


I spent this weekend getting our finances up to date and have found that we had a surplus last month of $2109 so there will not be much to pay for out of this month's spending money and there is no need to dip into savings (yay!!)

I have been instructed to take a week off work on sick leave to recover, and B is taking two days off to take me to the hospital, be there during the surgery and look after me the next day when he brings me home. He has looked after me so well since the accident .


Wish me luck!! Will let you know how it goes when I am able.

I got a nice surprise on the Sunday night of Week 23 with DH coming home 😊. He spent a weekend with our really good friends who made him see that his friendship was wrong and that he should try to make our marriage work and reminded him of the good points about me and our marriage.

We spent some time talking about things which we will start trying to do like talking a couple of days a week on the phone to try and connect and communicate more and better, date nights each week (with every second week to be out of the house with one choosing what to do one time and the other choosing next time) and for us to go away alone every 3-4 months; these things sound really promising for us to rebuild our marriage.

He ended the friendship and asked me to apologise for what I wrote to her. I told him I would but I was also going to make it clear that the friendship is over with no chance of restarting (as long as we are together, but I didn't write that). I did these things and when he saw the message he was initially upset but after a while seemed to be fine. I'm so hoping that there has been no further contact however am not sure how much I want to push trying to check this as I'm wanting to create positivity as we rebuild.

Last Thursday the cold I had got much worse so had 2 days off work due to being lethargic and having chills.

Yesterday B tried to teach me to ride a trail bike (here we call them dirt bikes). Unfortunately I had a small accident within 30 seconds of riding it and fell off the bike. It looks like I have jarred/sprained my shoulder which is rather painful. I'm going to go to the physiotherapist tomorrow and get it looked at, will possibly need X-rays and an MRI scan. We have decided that riding trail bikes will not be one of our joint activities as we are both traumatised from yesterday! I'm just glad that a sprained/jarred shoulder is the worst of it, who knows what could have happened..

Today B came down with my cold, so with his cold and my hurt shoulder we make a good pair!!

Financially I've had no idea of what we've been spending so just used the spending tracking app I have linked to our bank accounts and B's credit cards to put the bulk figures in for the month. Despite the upheaval it looks like our spending hasn't been too crazy amazingly. Not sure of what my shoulder will cost though - it could be anywhere between $125 (physiotherapist consulting fee) and $1000 (if X-rays and MRI scans are required) but it looks like financially we are ok.

I can't believe I haven't blogged at all this year!!! I thought I blogged at the start of the year but just checked, and not so. Seeing Shiela's comment that she's missed seeing my blog prompted me to not just lurk, but blog. The first few months has been very very busy but now we are in a quiet patch so it's time to resume old habits. I may try Shiela's habit of blogging weekly and titling the blog by week number.

A very quick summary of the first four-five months:

- January: lots of public holidays in Australia for this month; was basically either at work or away (we not only have the two weeks of Christmas off but also Australia Day weekend) or catching up
- February: the realisation that we were going away to Thailand and it is leading up to my busiest time of year at work. Have not worked so hard in a long time! Started an hour early every day, pretty much worked through lunch and worked back. Got an astonishing amount of work done, didn't have time for anything else and was super stressed. Most importantly though I got the required work done so that's all that matters.
- March: we went to Thailand for two weeks!! It was amazing. I will have to do a separate post with pictures, stories and will try to outline what we spent. The second half of the month was spent recovering and getting back to normal.
- April: it was my 40th birthday in the middle of the month, so we threw a party at home which was pretty big, we had just under 50 people and had it catered for. It was a great night, and pretty much everything I would want in a milestone birthday celebration. Also in April DH decided to change jobs, and found a job working at a friend's company which turns out to be in the same suburb as we live (slightly higher pay too).
- May: B started the job and is still getting used to it. We've had a lot of money come in this month due to his final pay from the previous job, and his new work also paid a pro-rata amount for 3 weeks pay. Important to note though that this must last until the middle of next month. Another big thing that happened is we bought a new camper. It was the kind of thing we wanted to get eventually but we had friends who bought a caravan and were selling their camper much cheaper than what it is worth. To get it we had to empty our savings so I was very nervous before we got the extra pay! We still have to sell our camper, will start advertising it next week.

What with the Thailand holiday and my birthday my credit cards have somehow crept up to around $2500. Reading the SA blogs has started to make me accountable to the cards again, so am focusing on reducing the balances down and getting them repaid.

I think that's all for now, hope you have all been well!

Last year I wrote about how we have a large amount of bills in the month of September and how high they are, and resolved to average out the annual expenditure and pay a set monthly amount from then on.

Well, it's a year on and we have been putting aside the averaged amount each month for mortgage and bills, which has definitely eased financial worries.

September 2017 is no different for bills though and exceeds our monthly amount we set aside by $878.53. We have no bills in October really though, so can easily make it up next month.

Last year in September bills exceeded the monthly amount by $1043, this year September bills exceed the month amount by $878.53. Our gas and electricity bills are lower than last year by $150 in total, so that represents the majority of the change.

I'm not sure that I need to recalculate the totals after all - as in work out all the bills for the period October 2016 to September 2017 and work out a new averaged amount as it is roughly the same as last year.

****

In other financial news, my car got serviced yesterday for the first time in a couple of years and cost $290 in total - $140 for the service, and $150 for new back brakes.

In July we went away and it was quite a spendy month, so we ended up in the red by -$911.17. In August we had a much quieter month and so were able to have $816.45 left over, so pretty much the majority of July's overspending has now been negated, which I'm very happy about.

The start of September has been pretty spendy though, so will be trying not to spend too much. First I needed a new pair of work shoes because the heels had worn off the ones I wearing, making them unsafe. I managed to find a pair for $70, which was a reasonable price. I was hoping for $50, so close enough.

Then on Saturday, I had bicarb soda all over the mattress (to get rid of dust mites) and was vacuuming it off when the power suddenly died. We tried using a different powerpoint, but nothing. This vacuum cleaner we've had for 8 years so we've got quite a lot of use out of it.

Due to still having bicarb soda all over the mattress we needed to get another one asap. We ended up with a Hoover pet bag powerhead vacuum cleaner for $410. I don't normally like bag vacuum cleaners but the salesman did say that the filters last longer and require less cleaning, which is a plus for me.

The vacuum cleaner does work really well I must admit! I haven't taken this money out of the EF because I think it's now running a bit low and we'll be able to cover it in this month's budget.

Yesterday I was thinking of just how glad I am that I stumbled on Savings Advice that three years ago! There are so many interesting stories and points of view to share, I feel like this site and everyone I talk to here is part of me and wouldn't want to lose it - so hopefully it's around for a while!

I'm not completely sure what to write about but feel I should try and keep active with the blogging nonetheless.

Today was a no-spend day because we had a late night out with friends last night and have simply been too tired to go anywhere. A lot of today was spent sleeping. I could have done the grocery shopping but simply didn't have the energy so dinner for us was pies and chips from the freezer.

I am still not tracking spending through the app as I have missed the first 11 days and it is all a bit hard to remember what was spent, especially when part of it was cash transactions. I do want to be back tracking spending next month though. I actually did not track last June either because that it is the month I went to the UK on a holiday. I cannot believe one year ago today I was madly packing to go on a holiday on the other side of the world!

Speaking of which, here is a picture of me & SG from when we met up! (I am the one wearing the pink tshirt)



I apologise for being so tardy with putting this picture up, it was a very happy day and I was glad to meet SG.

Another thing of note today - on a completely unrelated matter - is our dog for the last few days has been madly chewing her claw. I happened to have a look at it today and the claw has completely grown around so we will need to take her to the vet to have her nails clipped. She has to have her vaccinations done anyway so we will combine the two things to be done on the same visit. Hopefully all up it shouldn't cost more than $150-$200.

It's been 2 and a half weeks since I've blogged but it seems like forever ago.

I got through the majority of the statistics work and sat the exam. Because there was so much work and a few other things happened (my house of cards kind of fell down) I sat the exam without even studying the last two weeks of the course. When I say my house of cards kind of fell down, I had some personal stress plus lots of social things like public holidays and birthdays, so basically the last two weeks of the course I was either studying and catching up or attending social things. Although I barely studied the last two weeks of the course, I do feel like I kind of did ok. I had a score of 85% before the exam; the exam is worth 60% and I was able to do 75% of it ok. The other 25% unfortunately I left, so we will see what the end result is.

Unfortunately I missed the payment by the enrolment date for the next subject and I logged in on Monday thinking I could catch up but the subject wasn't even there. The payment was actually due the 24th of May and for some reason I thought it was later. I don't know what I am going to do yet because to be honest it was a bit of a relief to have a break. I got severely burnt out and the last few weeks, it got to the point where I just didn't feel like myself anymore. While I'm grateful for the opportunity to better myself I felt like everything was falling apart and I was missing out on all the stuff I loved because all my spare time was spent studying.

The day after the exam I got a cold so had to have the next day off work and was sick for a few days. This was all last week. This week I finally feel like I am getting back to my normal self. I have been sleeping better and am starting to learn to relax again, and am looking forward to going to the gym tomorrow night.

***

Tracking spending fell out the window a few weeks ago and I'm not sure when I will be back doing it. Because I was so busy though spending has dropped way down so there is no concerns there.

I checked the mail (which hadn't been done for 3 weeks) and paid some bills tonight, so that is all in order. We turned our spa off 2 months ago so the electricity bill is $130 lower than last year, which is great. (Not sure how much the spa will cost to fix but anyway!)

Because we average out our bills and put aside the same amount each month after we paid the car insurances in March and pretty much cleared out the bills account, I have started working out just how much surplus we should have from each month (the surplus being the monthly amount of $4041 less whatever the actual monthly bills are). This month the bills were actually $3969.67 so the surplus is $71.94. This surplus plus the surplus from the previous months is now $654.73, which we have to add to future bills.

I checked our shares tonight as 30 June is our year end so was wondering what our profit for this year would be. Last year's return was -7.90% and this year's return at this current date is 15.32%. I calculate return by increase/decrease in value plus investment earnings. So for two years we are looking at a rate of return of 7.42%, which is 3.71% each year. That's not too bad considering what you would earn in interest instead.

***

I loved FrugalTexan's idea of the SHE (sidetracked home executive) system and have started implementing the basic weekly plan. Monday night I did the shopping and tonight I paid the bills and attended to some paperwork. I will aim to do some cleaning tomorrow night and then some on Saturday.

I'm not completely sure about the card system though. I actually have a housework ideas app which I think would work fine, I just need to stick to the routine outlined.

I think that's all for now, must be off to bed!

As I mentioned a few days ago, for the first time in a long time our spending app and bank balance were both pretty close to each other.

We ended up finishing March with $399 left over. The only thing is because a lot of our transactions are credit card / EFTPOS transactions they don't show up immediately, especially over the weekend. I find that it takes about 3 days to see the transactions.

So I'm thinking of definitely closing off March by Tuesday the 4th.

There are a couple of things I want to do with the left over money once I know what it actually is. Firstly, put $59 towards month 3 of the $1000 Christmas savings challenge in order to complete it.

The balance will go to savings. It is the lowest it has been since tracking our joint since when B started his job in March last year, at 2.5% of our income. With about $340 (if that is what it ends up being) it would be around 5%-6% which is a bit better. Will post actual balances in a few days.

On another note, I have now updated the sidebar to reflect that we have completed another one of our goals, to pay off B's tax. (Ok it was more of a necessary goal than something we wanted to do, but still it felt good to complete something)

I then checked our balances in savings and shares; we are now standing at $10,366.25 in total!!! Part of it is due to the market being on a high (the shares have gone up by $842 which is a pretty substantial increase) so am not really sure if the balance will stay that way but it is nice at the moment.

The EF is actually part savings, part mortgage repayment as it is all sitting in the mortgage offset. In the end though if the money is needed then it is needed and will get used. I am just very strict about the actual definition of what constitutes an emergency so hopefully it won't get used.

We're finally at the end of the big spendy month of March. Not spendy because of actual spending but because of the big outlay of cash from our accounts.

For a while because we've been building up cash to pay the car insurance policies and B's tax bill the end of the month hasn't really worried us. If we spent a touch more than the budget allowed it was no problem.

This month because the extra money is gone we have a completely accurate reflection of what is there!! There is the cash in the mortgage offset which is our emergency fund but I am pretty strict about leaving that be.

According to my spending app which I update and track religiously we have $750 left until Friday. According to the actual bank account we have $645 left. Not sure what I have missed but, never mind $645 it is.

On Thursday our weekly spending money in total of $575 will be drawn out the account leaving $70 left. B will then be paid on Friday.

We will be spending a bit on Thursday night because we are going out to a concert with friends so it will be an expensive night (which is pretty rare). Very proud of ourselves for sticking to our budget so well!

Yesterday we made a small withdrawal from the holiday fund of $189.25. This was for an esky (large drinks cooler for camping) as our other one has been broken for a while. The holiday fund was $485 and is now down to $295.75. I like keeping a bit of money there just in case, and the football season is due to start next week so I will do the points challenge (whenever my football team wins I will put $1 per point to the holiday fund; it's a fun way to build some holiday cash when you don't actually have a holiday plan so that if some sort of holiday plan or idea happens there is a little bit set aside for it). Imasaver actually gave me that idea; wherever you are Imasaver I hope you're ok.

Other financial news is we received the gas bill ($131, up from last year) and the electricity bill ($491, down from last year); net difference for both was $3.63 saved compared to last year. More importantly as this big bills month closes over it looks like we could possibly have only $211 left over at the end of the month so any extra expenses will need to be funded from savings if they are over that amount.

By Thursday I will pay the $2780 for B's tax and make sure that the $2100 (roughly) is there for the insurance to debit from the account.

Ps I can see many of you have wild, crazy weather - please stay safe and best wishes for no damage or long outages!

It's been a little while since I've posted so rather than write about whatever the latest thing is, I'm going to write about 11 things (hopefully mostly financial) that have been going on in the last 11 days:

1. On Tuesday our dishwasher seal broke . Luckily I was standing near it and it had only run for 3 minutes so there was no water damage. B had a look at it and found the manufacturers website so we bought a double pack of seals (just in case the other seal goes, so that we don't have to re-order) for $52.73 which they say will be delivered to us next Wednesday. We are both so sick of washing dishes by hand but thankfully have got ourselves into a more regular routine so it's a bit less painful.

2. I finally got around to checking my superannuation account (retirement account) and the balance is $92,008. Going by ceejay's years x income, by the time I turn 40 next year I need to have 2 x times my income so $108,000. I realized that combined with the taxable investments I hold outside of superannuation and earnings that hopefully the account will receive it should be a possibility. The earnings last year were a paltry 2.44% however over 5 years in total they were 38.75% which equates to 7.75% per year which beats the standard 5%. I am happy with 7.75%.

3. B got a letter from a superannuation account which was an employer one from a job he had 9-10 years ago stating that if he didn't give his instructions on what to do with the account they would be turning it over to the Australian Taxation Office so they could hold it in the unclaimed moneys department. We had a financial planner roll all of our employer superannuation accounts into one years ago however he missed this one, the current account balance is $4,187.50. The letter was dated 1st February and gave us until 22nd February however I don't think they sent it for a while because we saw the letter on the 28th so the money has now gone to the Tax Office. There will now be a lengthy process to get it and roll it over as B will need to apply in writing and we will need to wait a while most likely to receive it. How annoying.

4. We have decided not to go on the Phuket holiday. This is due to our friends not being interested in going anymore and also B not really being interested. I wouldn't mind going but I'm not too bothered that we aren't doing it anymore as I had a big trip overseas last year and generally like to go overseas every 2-3 years, otherwise it can be a bit expensive going on annual overseas trips. We are now looking at doing a camping holiday in the next state at a beachy sort of area instead, which I am looking forward to. I'm not sure of when we will go though, it would be sometime between July and September and would be dependent on B's work (my work is a bit more flexible at that time of year).

5. This month we pay B's tax of $2,780. All funds have now been saved and the money will be transferred over soon.

6. Our car insurances also get debited out of our account around the 19th of March; mine is $969.40 for a 14 year old car; B's is $1,121.16 for a 6 year old car. We have enough money in the account and because I averaged out the bills amount back in October we did not have to pay for any of it out of pocket which is great! Last year we had to find $461.40 to cover the remaining portion. All I need to do is work out which bank account B's car insurance comes out of, don't remember.

7. We made month number 2 of the Christmas savings challenge, so we now have $135 saved up. This month we are supposed to save up $95. We currently have $2 saved up so need to start working towards it.

8. I bought a replacement suit for work a couple of weeks ago for $132, which was an $87 reduction in price. This suit should last a long time so was happy to pay it.

9. B is on a health kick and has rejoined boxing classes. He went regularly just before we got married but then it died off after the wedding so it's been a few years since he's been. To test the waters instead of signing up for a membership we bought a 10 class pack for $130. So far he has done 2 classes this week and has lost 2 kilos so is pretty happy. If he decides after using up the class pack that he wants to rejoin, it is $19.95 per week (same as my membership).

10. Last week we had my family over for lunch and it was a warm day so we cooked up chicken with roast potatoes and salad, then my sister and I both did a dessert each. It was a lovely meal and for 7 people we spent a whole $37.86 . You could spend that on 2 people going out for lunch so I was pretty happy.

11. It is week 2 of my study unit and I am coping ok with the workload. They say you need to allocate 10hours per week however this subject's tutor has said we should allocate 15(!?!) which I really hope is not the truth because I don't know how on earth I would fit that amount of time in. I really want to be diligent with doing 10hours from the very start to avoid having to do 20hours around exam and assignment time, but this week I am finding that I have put in 7.5hours and don't really have 2.5 more hours of work to do.... I will probably finish the online quiz I have to do and do some revision.

I struggled to think of the 11th thing but I'm glad to have jotted down some bits and pieces. Off to check the blogs!

Yesterday I started another study unit and the textbook requirements weren't clear. It also wasn't clear because now I have committed to studying and enrolled in the university for the degree the method of payment is via a student loan. It said textbooks were required however on the enrolment letter it said to complete the form in time to ensure that your materials arrive in time so it was unclear as to whether I have to pay or it goes on the student loan and gets delivered. Then the university gave the login details and stated that no printed material would be distributed. (I am studying through distance education and while the majority of the units are through one university, some are through others). Due to not being sure of whether we buy the books or the university sends them and adds the cost to the student loan I decided to wait until the date the unit started. No books were sent and my form was submitted weeks ago (3-4) so it's clear I had to buy them. The cost through distance education was expensive at $168.75 for two. So yesterday I logged on to the course (which is at one of the different universities) and they had an ebook option with a discount code which amounted to $94.42! I was happy to use this option. It definitely pays to wait sometimes .

****
Our shopping for February came in at $621, which for us is pretty good - I like it around the $600 mark so this is fine. Our biggest expenses for February aside from the normal mortgage and bills category (which equates to 47% of our monthly income) were B's savings towards his tax payment next month of $570 and our cat's expenses of $744 (vet visit, then her medical test, then boarding kennel when we went away).

I have low-level anxiety about the cash outflow that's going to happen in March. I've known about it for a while and have budgeted and saved but really hope nothing goes wrong this month as it will stretch us. Pretty much on the same day we pay B's tax bill of $2780 plus get two car insurance policies deducted from our bank account for the amount of around $2100 - so $4880 roughly; a big cash outflow.

****
I received the $60 Safeway everyday rewards the other day so transferred that to Christmas savings - $4 to go then month 2 is complete!

At this point in time this is all I can think of, hoping that you are all well.

I don't know what I will be doing over the New Year, it is all changing but generally around this time I find it hard to blog and update so I've had a look at the savings account and the final balances are as follows:

Cash (Mini EF): $2,233.21
Study unit (from Xmas bonus): $500.00
Holiday fund: $485.00
Shares (Maxi EF): $5,586.00

Total: $8,804.21

Yesterday I bought another 100 QBE shares for $12.48 per share. These shares are doing really well at the moment. Therefore the mini EF is slightly smaller than usual.

I've decided that I'm going to do a savings challenge on a smaller scale this year and simply budget our savings.

The challenge I am planning on doing is a 12 month Christmas savings challenge. SA had a 12-week $1000 challenge, so I have used the same amounts but modified it into a monthly plan. The January deposit required of $60 already has around $18.50 in the account, which is great.

In 2017 we are going to be doing a few much-needed things to our house as well as taking a holiday, so there will be less going to savings than in previous years. I feel like we have had two good years to repay debt and build up savings so this is kind of a year off from that.

I have cancelled the weekly EF savings debit and have created a yearly planner showing which month each goal will be accomplished, savings will be transferred accordingly.

Our plan for 2017 savings is:

- B's tax $1390 (due March)
- B's credit card repayment $2160
- Phuket balance of deposit $815 (due around April)
- Phuket spending money $2000
- New security doors for house $1000
- Garden updates to front and back $1500 (due by September, our spring time)
- New tyres for my car $600 (due asap - could be up to $1000, we will save the balance)
- Savings - shares $1265
- Savings - cash $1270

Based on these items, the percentages for the categories is as follows:
- Tax/debt repayment 30%
- Travel 23%
- House spending 21%
- Car spending 5%
- Savings 21%

B's credit card won't be repaid by the end of the year, but the balance will be much lower. With regards to travel, it is probably going to be our last overseas holiday for a couple of years (unless we do something for my 40th). I had a category for a new car fund but have been finding it too hard to do this as well as repay debt so may simply when B's loan is paid off in 1.5 years use the amount we were paying for that loan to save for a new car.

If I don't get around to checking in, hope you all have a wonderful new year!

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: $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.

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?

Challenge starting balance: $5,193.18
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $36.00
- fortnightly balance transfer payment $151.50
- repayment to B's credit card $10.00
- mortgage topup $280.00
- plus extra paid towards mortgage $31.00
Challenge closing balance: $5,737.37

The weekly EF savings got transferred out and I transferred last week's football winnings of $36.00. So far I am at $47.00 with that challenge and then my team won again! This time by 15 points so that will be next week's transfer. The holiday fund has been reduced to $-445 now.

The fortnightly balance transfer came out and then over the weekend I got the monthly credit card statement emailed to me, the balance is now down to $523.50!! Somehow I am ahead by $110 as opposed to my credit card paydown spreadsheet. I have no idea but it means that in September instead of final payment being $311.00, it will be $220.50.

We also threw $10 over to B's credit card from our weekly spending money.

April mortgage interest was $588 and in the month of April we paid $8 extra, $580 - $300 maximum interest we want to pay is $280, which we transferred over.

Then I saw that the mortgage balance was $120,061 and got excited and figured that perhaps we can pay $62 and it can be down to $119,999 by the end of the month, so have transferred $31 over from our spending money.

Speaking of spending, on the weekend we made up for the two weeks prior where we barely spent anything. We got B's birthday present, some motorbike riding gear for $300, these two gorgeous lamps I've had my eye on for a while for $168, black printer toner ink for $71.77 and a laptop bag for B's work for $46.

I had to put the lamps and the groceries for $116 on my credit card so it will be getting paid back out of next week's spending money. We have no social plans and will just do everything on the cheap next week. The purchases were worth it.

Another thing I bought is my first herb plant- parsley. It sits on our window sill, hope to get a lot of use out of it.

Whew so much writing !!

I enjoyed last week writing small posts about different financial matters, so hope to be back doing that tomorrow .

Ps does anybody know what has happened to Imasaver? I just realised I haven't seen her blogs in a while and she's not on the "all blogs" list. Thanks.