VS-from-Oz's Personal Finance Blog

52 Week challenge opening balance: $2,719.42
Plus Weekly Deposit to EF: $71.02
Plus Balance Transfer Payment: $60.60
52 Week challenge closing balance: $2,851.04

This month because of the flights instead of making the usual monthly balance transfer payment I paid as much as possible to the credit card and divided the $303 by 5, which brought me to $60.60 per week. Much easier to do and that way I could bring down the balance of the flights put on the card instead when I got paid. So last night I transferred it over, week 1.

I joined Groupon UK and after consulting my UK friend bought my first UK Groupon voucher! It is a meal for 4 people in their hometown (they can bring someone for the fourth person) for a 2 course Indian meal for £38, which came to $75.56 AUD. We had a quiet weekend so was able to easily get the voucher. It works out to $18.89pp, which is about the price of a main meal in Oz, so am happy with that deal.

Have had loads of fun researching various places but it has become so apparent just how expensive it is over there. Luckily our friend is also into vouchers so she's looking into accommodation deals.

When going overseas I've only really been to second world countries so it's been really easy to just wing it in terms of food and things to do. When everything costs either the same or less you don't feel like you need to plan everything, you know you can go there and sort things out when you arrive.

But travelling to a place which is more expensive than where you're from is different. So very grateful for all of your tips, don't know where I'd be otherwise. My friend's dad went to the UK years ago and came back with a $5000 credit card bill! So determined to not let that happen.

We're going to spend a couple of days in London seeing the sights: go on the London Eye, I want to see the Tower Bridge and the Crown Jewels and go on a double decker bus and I saw a deal to go to an Ice Bar and have a couple of cocktails, thought that would be nice.

I also want to have a traditional English afternoon tea and other English foods. My friend wants to take me to either Cornwall or Wales. All so very exciting

52 Week challenge opening balance: $2,648.40
Plus Weekly Deposit to EF: $71.02
52 Week challenge closing balance: $2,719.42

Today was B's first day at his new job (aka first job for 9 years!). He came home with a massive headache - will probably take time to get used to, I think. New jobs are like that anyway - with mine it took a full three months before I was no longer stressed from learning/remembering all the little things about my work.

Last week I put the flight on my credit card and hopefully get the 55 days interest free. That was $1773. Then on Sunday we were looking at my bike wheel and B couldn't fix it so we went to the bike shop. It turns out I would need a whole new wheel plus cogs (?) plus chain, which would work out to $150-160. A new bike was $330. So we ended up going with the new bike (aka my early birthday present). The cost of that went on the credit card too, so it's sitting at around $1585 (I put $518 from the holiday fund onto it). The bike cost will be repaid back when B gets paid next. The airfares I transferred $500 over to tonight, so $1773-518-500 = $755 remaining to be repaid.

I am so used to having that card super low it's stressing me out owing that even though I know it won't be charged interest yet. It's just been low for so long, I'm used to it. But seeing that it is getting knocked down a bit makes me feel better.

***

I worked out a rough holiday budget. I know I can rustle up $2200 spending money, or $105 per day that I'm there. I'll also have the card down to $0 by the time I step onto that plane, so if I need to rely on it, I can. $2200 spending money may be too low, but we'll see how we go.

***

We're going to have a completely different budget next month, as the business officially shut down on Saturday. I gave B the banking details for his pay to be put into our bills account, the same as mine.

I would normally separate our pay due to the his having a business and needing to pay business expenses, but that's all gone now.

It will just be a much more streamlined budget. The budget we use now is an excel spreadsheet I created which goes B's business income less business expenses = net business income + my pay less house/personal expenses less spending money = pay left over.

Now it will simply be B's pay + my pay less house/personal expenses less spending money. House/personal expenses have all house bills there, savings are in this category also and all personal loans.

I don't know what we will allocate to savings or anything like that, but I did say to B that we will pay all the interest charged on the mortgage so it is purely a principal payment. I'm happy to spend a bit more disposable income now that he is earning extra but we must do something worthwhile also with the extra money.

Anyway must go to bed, hope you're all well!

52 Week challenge opening balance: $2,577.38
Plus Weekly Deposit to EF: $71.02
52 Week challenge closing balance: $2,648.40

What an interesting week it's been! I was trying to work out what I'd do for a holiday now that B is employed and doesn't get holidays for another year, and I really didn't want to stay home.

My friend didn't want to go on a cruise, it was too short notice for her. That's ok, no hard feelings. B suggested I see his family friend in the UK, and so I asked her and she replied back that she would be delighted to have me! I wanted an adventure of some sort and now it's happening!

In around three months I will be seeing a different land, it looks like of castles, rolling hills, quaint cottages and cobblestoned streets! Very excited.

Things like this make me feel so blessed. That I have the means available to go on the occasional holiday. That I have a great husband who understands that occasionally I just want to do something really super awesome. That I have the holidays available. That there is room available on my credit card to book the flight.

There was $143 owing on my card on Tuesday so I transferred some money from savings to bring it down to 0. Yesterday I then booked the flights. I did this because my card has 55 days interest free period but the interest free period begins on the date of the first purchase made.

The flights were on special, I paid $1773 for a return flight to Manchester (our friend lives around 2 hours away from London so this was much easier). The return flights for London were $1550 but then the cost of travel to London and the time spent travelling meant the Manchester flights were a better option. I want to see London, but not straight off a plane.

So it's all very exciting! You never know Scottish Girl I may get to come and see you

B is finishing up his jobs before his new job starts on Wednesday - he thinks he may be done by tomorrow! He needs to cancel his business insurance, superannuation (as his employer will now pay it) and his professional association subscription payment. Unfortunately we just got him a new phone and iPad a few months ago on a higher plan which will probably barely get used. As the contract is 24 months it looks like we are stuck with that.

He got told his pay will be $75,000 a year paid monthly. His business will probably get enough to cover the car lease payment and some spending money but I foresee that while we wait for his first paycheck we may need to dip into the EF for a couple of weeks. Times like these I'm glad we have the EF, because the financial stress is not there - we have money to cover our needs when we need it and soon enough he'll have his first pay and we'll keep on boosting the balance up.

I'm trying to pay as much of the holiday expenses and save as much holiday spending as I can. I transferred the $518 from the Holiday Fund, so it is now $0. As soon as the money is in our checking account I will pay it against the airfare bought yesterday, which will leave $1255 owing. Hopefully living frugally for the moment will repay the airfare balance quickly and cover expenses and spending money. Wish me luck guys!

52 Week challenge opening balance: $2,567.38
Plus Safeway Everyday rewards to EF: $10.00
52 Week challenge closing balance: $2,577.38

I was checking through my budgeting app and realised that I forgot to transfer into the EF a $10.00 snowflake I received last month, so transferred it over tonight.

Today the car upholstering got done to the ceiling - it looks sooo much better! No more front and back of the car ceiling hanging down any more . As quoted, this work was $250, and well worth it.

I discussed my holiday options with B a bit more - I am so happy that he's totally fine with me going away without him. He just wants to know that I'll be safe and won't be spending a fortune. I've asked my friend about going on the cruise, so we'll wait and see.

I ended up buying 51 more QBE shares, so now hold 201 of them. Expected dividend will now be $60.30. Now the mini EF and the maxi EF are more evenly balanced. Cash is $2,997.32 and shares are $2,860.86. My plan is cash to be around $2500 or so, and then invest the rest.

That's all my financial news for the day, talk soon!

This has been in the works for the last week and yesterday it was made official. B got a job! Very happy news.

He has had a carpentry business for nearly 9 years, but it was taking a toll on his body. Before that he was working as a building supervisor - overseeing the construction of new homes, and now he has just got a job doing this again.

This will mean that he can work in a non-physical job, meaning less damage to his body. The money is very good ($75,000 per year as opposed to around $40,000 which the business brings in), but it is a higher stress job, so we'll have to see how he goes with it. Hopefully it will be all fine. He starts in 2 weeks so has a very busy couple of weeks finishing up his current jobs.

***

My holiday plans are now officially up in the air. I took a couple of short holidays last year, but really our money was tied up with saving for the big party we had for B's 40th. I feel like I need a decent holiday. (Like an adventure holiday!)

B can't go now because you don't get holidays in the first year unless it is mutually agreed, and often it is unpaid. For him now though, the new job will be his focus, so he doesn't want to ask anyhow; and I'm totally fine with that.

So now I'm left with either doing something with friends or (gulp) going somewhere on my own. I do want to organise something this month so we'll see how that works out.

***

This morning I thought I would look up the dividends my new shares are going to receive. It turns out they are both being paid in April (a day after my birthday), one is $21 and the other is $45. The shares that will pay $45 (QBE), I have 150 in and want to end up with 1,000. The dividend record date is 11 March, so if I buy more by 11 March then I'll get a bigger dividend. I was planning on buying 50, so put in an order in, so we'll see what happens there. If I was planning on buying anyway, may as well earn a bit extra on it

52 Week Challenge Opening Balance: $2,496.36
Plus:
- EF savings $71.02
52 Week Challenge Closing Balance: $2,567.38

The EF savings hit the account over the weekend so have added it to my challenge - really the only addition I expect over the next few weeks as I made all the savings payments in one hit.

For February I was able to save 21.17% of my pay and will also add $135.00 to the Holiday Fund. It was a quiet month, and my highest variable expenses were reupholstering the car ceiling for $250 and I spent $159 on clothes. I will be spending a bit on clothes over the next few months as from November-January I pretty much bought the bare minimum and things need to be replaced.

As it is the end of the month I have updated the EF breakdown. Our mini EF balance is still larger than our maxi EF, maybe in the next month I might buy some more shares to even out the balance. I don't want the cash portion to dip below $2000-$2500 though.

I have renamed the Thailand savings as the Holiday Fund as we are now going to Thailand next year. I am itching to book a holiday but at the moment there are a few factors that are making me hold off. I did say to B that no matter what I want something booked by the middle of March.

Work will be really busy up to middle of May and will well and truly die off by June-July. I barely took any leave last year because we were saving for B's party so I have lots of leave accrued now and within a couple of months will really need a break of some sort. Will be looking at doing something between June and August, depending on various factors.

The shares haven't really dropped too much in value since I bought them, so that's good - only about $60. I think the account (all balances combined) is possibly the biggest it's ever been! Ok, that's kinda sad. I'm going to have to get used to the balances increasing. Did anybody else have this problem when their savings were increasing?

I guess in perspective, there is a bit over 1.5 months of my pay there now, so even though the dollar value is increasing, in actual fact there's not "heaps" there. And if you combined both our pays, then there is 1 month's there. Really not heaps.

Another thing too, when you think of how many months salary you want to have in an EF, do you use your current salary as a guide or bare minimum monthly amount required? I would rather use bare minimum monthly amount required because if you were in a financial bind you should cut all expenses to the bare minimum, I believe. (I worked out my bare minimum to be between $2200 and $2500 per month)

Ps. credit card debt is now below $2000 - it is $1826, so that is progressing well.

52 Week Challenge Opening Balance: $1,809.96
Plus:
- Priceline rewards snowflake $4.38
- Safeway grocery rewards snowflakes $20.00
- Mortgage additional repayment $288.00
- EF savings $71.02
- Credit card repayment $303.00
52 Week Challenge Closing Balance: $2,496.36

Money here is slowly getting back to what we know as normal, B is starting to get paid weekly instead of us having to stretch his payments to 2-3 weeks (yet the payments are worth 1-2 weeks).

So I've just kind of sat on transferring various payments (due to not being sure if we would have enough to do all the payments). It's probably more time effective to just do it all in one hit anyhow.

We received the Priceline and Safeway snowflakes at the start of the month (by reduced prices at the checkout) so when I got paid, I just transferred the amount over.

The mortgage additional payment and the credit card repayment are both monthly payments - the credit card is actually for the month of March but as the payment is due by the 7th, I just paid it at the same time as the other payments.

All that is left in the Bills account now is enough to cover all direct debits and $250 for the car being upholstered next week. Last year we noticed that the ceiling of my 13 year old car is starting to drop at the front but as we had so many other repairs, we put it in the not urgent category. Now the back is falling down as well as the front and you can see the ceiling drop in the rearview mirror, so we thought we'd better get it sorted out fairly soon - it will possibly get done next Thursday.

Spending this month is still low, so we're doing well in that area.

***

As I've decided not to study for the degree any further I spent the money set aside for the study unit by buying 100 QBE shares. I bought 50 in December for $12.15 and they dropped down, so I got 100 for $10.10. At the end of the month I will update the EF breakdown on the sidebar properly.

Work is also going well with the job change - I spent some time today doing some bookkeeping work for our clients and have been spending a bit of time each day training our part-timer in various aspects of my job. Possibly about a third of my job involves so many administrative duties it would take days to train someone in! So I figure 2-3 new things each day is enough to teach her while not overloading her. The idea is that she will be doing a lot of administrative overflow and be able to work more than 3 days per week.

I have plenty of things to write about but it's right before bed and I've gotten really tired all of a sudden! Hope you're all doing great

Quick random blog post for today. I'm on the computer trying to do money transfers but for some reason I can't get into the banking website, I'll have to do it tomorrow, no drama.

When going to pay the weekly bills I realised that I forgot to pay our home phone and B's phone bill last week. They were due about the 8th and it is now the 18th! The phone company give $15.00 late fees for over 8 days, so that little error has cost us $30.00. Not thrilling!!! I guess I've had a lot on my mind lately. How annoying. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often.

When I did the balance transfer last year there was around $100 left on CC1, which kind of got paid down but never completely and started to kind of hover around $100. Well in the last few weeks, it has crept up to around $300.

As of a couple of days ago it was $441: the train ticket was $141, the coffee pods balance is $37.60 (every time we use a packet I pay $4.16 against the purchase), the bulk meat balance is $31 and our overspending last week (thanks to a double birthday) was $130. I paid $373 on there from my pay, which leaves the coffee pod purchase and the bulk meat purchase as the only things left to be repaid. It's good to have the balance back to being low again!

Well must get ready to go to bed, will have to pay bills tomorrow - let's hope it's working then!

52 Week Challenge starting balance: $1,738.94
Plus EF Savings: $71.02
52 Week Challenge closing balance: $1,809.96

I'll start off with the savings side. The weekly EF savings of $71.02 went through on the weekend; I was just busy with other stuff which is why I hadn't posted it.

***

I work as an assistant accountant, however I'm not fully qualified to be an accountant. I've been studying on and off through an online course for the degree however it's so difficult. I'm definitely better in the practical side of things than the academic! And with work it becomes 50-60 hour weeks, which means that basically everything else in life falls to the wayside and I'm constantly juggling things and it's kind of like a house of cards - something goes wrong and it has a massive ripple effect.

To be qualified I still have five years to go, so for the last six months I have been questioning whether or not I want to live like this for five years. The enrolment closing date was Sunday, and I was 90% no and 10% yes. I ended up going with no, and didn't enrol.

So in my eyes I have two career paths, bookkeeping or working as an accountant. I have decided against becoming an accountant - I understand why so much has to be learnt but underestimated what was involved. Now that I have officially decided on something it feels like a huge weight has been lifted. I'm very grateful to have been given the opportunity, but it's not for me. I can live off what I earn fine and would rather live a peaceful, more balanced life. (ie working 40 hours only).

My work doesn't really take on bookkeeping work so I thought it would be easiest just to quit, simply because if I'm working in a bookkeeping capacity I need to actually be doing the work.

So I went to quit. And my boss told me that while he was happy I was studying, I don't need to. He just wants me to work there because I make his life so much easier. He knows that pretty much anything he gives me to a certain level will get done, and there will be no problems whatsoever. And if I want to do some bookkeeping work he'll get me to do a Xero accreditation course and I can do some bookkeeping work for some of our accounting clients (because he thinks there are some that need it). How can I argue with that? It's too sweet .

We also have a girl working three days a week who is around 25, doing filing and various things, and unlike the people before her is really good, so we want to keep her, and offer her more days before she goes because she wants fulltime work. So currently the plan is to give her some of my lower level jobs to give her fulltime work, or at least four days a week with the view that as I'll be doing other things and a bit busier I'll need some of my work taken over.

It's all very exciting, and as I said to my boss I simply want some of this in my skill-set so if I ever do need to find another job (eg if the unfortunate happened and he had a heart attack or something), this is the path of my employment. I'm happy with my work- I work with great people and it's a learning kind of culture, things are always changing; so I'm happy to be there for however long. Sometimes you just need to look at your job or career and make a few tweaks here and there. Here's hoping it all works out for the best

52 Week Challenge starting balance: $1,667.92
Plus:
Weekly savings into EF: $71.02
52 Week Challenge closing balance: $1,738.94

The weekly savings into the EF hit the bank account, so I thought I would update.

Grocery shopping was at $122 yesterday and I was very proud of myself - until this morning when I found that there were four items I had to buy that were needs and couldn't wait until next week. Add another $20 roughly! I tried to keep the total down as low as possible, so I guess it's the best I could do.

Valentine's Day is coming up so I thought this year we would just get little gifts, nothing too flashy. B wanted some motorbike things, so that was $31.45 and I wanted a nice daytime perfume (I have going out perfume and I have perfume I wear to work which is muted, but I wanted a fresh daytime one to wear when we go out for lunch or something). I got Hippie Princess by Vera Wang for $29.

The thing I need to keep track of is another snowflake. I got the perfume, and hair serum from Priceline where I got a $4.38 gift voucher. So now we have to transfer $24.38 to the EF when we get paid.

I'm still trying to work out what to do about the money we used from savings to cover B not getting paid last week. We used $446 plus I spent $47 on my credit card and had to transfer $50 onto his credit card. I haven't paid the $47 on my card yet but have already used $496 from our mortgage offset savings.

I think I'll see how he goes with the next couple of weeks with receiving money. If it looks like we only have enough for low spending and his business payments at the end of the month, I may just put it into his Christmas period costs from shutdown. (It is a shutdown cost because of the delays caused from Christmas shutdown). We used $800 at Christmas time and this $496 will bring it to $1296, so we would allow next Christmas for a slightly higher amount.

It's about a week until we see some money other than our savings and there's a few balls in the air I need to keep track of...

*Last week I received a $20 snowflake from the shopping rewards, so when we have some cash I need to transfer it to the EF. Today I spent the $80 needed for the second week to get another $15 snowflake on my next shop, so the snowflakes balance to be transferred could increase by the time we receive money next (I don't think it will though).

*The coffee pods purchase. I consider coffee pods to be part of our grocery shopping so every time we opened a packet (we bought 10) I would include that in our weekly shop and transfer the money to my card. However the amount per packet is $8.32, which is much higher than the usual $3.70-$5. I decided that when we receive money I would transfer half the full amount over ($41.60) and then every time we use a packet pay $4.16. So we need to pay the $41.60.

*Meat: I got my hair done today ($110) and decided to stop in at the butcher on the way home (both are a suburb over). I was only going to get enough for our weekly shop but the bulk prices were so good, I got two-three weeks worth. Here's what we got:
- 2 pork steaks $6
- 2 x 2 chicken schnitzels $5.40 each
- chicken sausages $6
- beef mince $6
- 2 x 2 chicken marylands $3.80 each
- 2 x 2 chicken breast fillets $5.80 each
- 3 x beef rump steaks $8.85 each

The cost of the whole lot was $75.38, which I put on my credit card and will transfer over each weekly portion as we buy groceries (because we only have minimal cash). This week's meal plan:

- tomorrow chicken Maryland and roast vegetables
- Monday - we don't cook, it is get your own food night (because B has poker with his friends it is easier for me to make soup & toast or something)
- Tuesday - pork steaks & veggies
- Wednesday - steak & veggies
- Thursday - chicken alfredo with pasta
- Friday - we don't cook, it is get something from the oven or takeaway.

So the cost of this week's meat will be $3.80 + $6 + $8.85 + $5.80 = $24.45.

The price paid for the various meats is roughly the same as discount at the supermarket. The only thing is you don't always get discount at the supermarket, so it's good to have a couple of weeks on hand where we know it's for a low price.

*Grocery shopping: Budget this week $120. Spent so far $33.10 + $24.45 + $22.90 (some more purchases today) = $80.45, leaving just under $40 left. We need to buy fruit & veggies, lunch food, cheap meat for the dog (butcher didn't have this), bread and up-n-goes (cereal drink) for B, and cream for the chicken alfredo (and possibly pasta). May need to be creative, or may be ok.


So glad to get these figures out in the open and in front of me, I was worried I'd forget something.

It/s last thing on a Friday night here but I'm not completely ready to go to bed so I thought I might just do a quick post. Bedtime's not far off though.

Not a whole lot to report, just a fairly pleasant non-eventful day. My co-worker went to a seminar for the morning and brought us back a blueberry muffin to share, so that was nice .

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow (it is *so* in need of it) and later on that day it is my friend's birthday, so that works out well (having an occasion to wear nice hair too!). The friend's birthday is at another friend's place and we each have to bring a platter of food, as well as our drinks.

I decided to make a spinach dip and put it inside a Cobb bread (where you use the inside bread as the dipping portion). Have never tried this before so really hope it works!

Spent around $5 on the ingredients, need to get the Cobb bread from the bakery tomorrow. I also spent $33.10 on some of our groceries, things that were marked down - got almond milk, three packets of muesli bars, a big bottle of olive oil, potato chips, laundry liquid, wet cat food and denta stix for the dog. Denta stix are chew bones, but of course when I got home I realised I was going to look into a softer option for her because they are starting to get difficult for her to chew. Must remember next time!

I also got wine worth $9.20 (two bottles) and B's beer ($50).

B & I had a relaxing night just vegging out in front of the tv, we had sausage rolls and mini dim sims for tea - spent lots of time flicking through various things on the iPad (did do around 20 minutes worth of housework first though).

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

A day after transferring all that was left over from last month's pay, I found out that B is not getting paid until next week. (I thought he was getting paid today)

So I ended up transferring $446 from savings to cover the weekly automatic savings payment (I don't want to get into the habit of putting that on hold or cancelling it), groceries, alcohol, my hair getting done, money to put in towards my friend's birthday present and money for B's social stuff ($20 this week). This week we will have to make sure we don't go over $120 on the grocery spend! I am determined.

Thankfully he is now billing his usual amounts so in a couple of weeks we should be back to normal.

***

Last year I got some really nice biodegradable coffee pods which were pricey but really nice. They emailed me a deal of 25% off 100 pods, which was quite good. I was going to buy four months worth (this would tip it into the free freight category) but when I tried to apply the deal it didn't work.

They may have sold out already. I ended up getting a 10 pack of pods (100 in total, it is 10 per sleeve) of different flavours to try out.

The last time I bought was October, I think. This is a company I don't mind supporting occasionally so we will call this my splurge. The 10 pack plus freight costed $83.20, so at $8.32 per packet of pods compared to my usual $4.76 it is a splurge! (Will not happen again until later this year). I'm looking forward to trying all of the different flavours.

***

A friend found a cruise she really wanted to go on next year for Australia Day, which goes for three days and would cost us $1598. As Thailand for us has been pushed back to next year also it would mean two expensive holidays in a year - really did not want to commit to that. With me it was more the money - our Thailand offer was for 7 nights accommodation plus flights was $1600; and this is a three day cruise not stopping anywhere and we still would have to get flights etc. Not thrilling.

B just wasn't keen on going. Unfortunately pretty much everyone else she has invited has also declined because of the expense - most people she has invited are families, so their cost was around $4000. So she's a bit upset at the moment because she thought it would be fun. Hopefully in time she will realise that it's not everyone's cup of tea, and it's very expensive, and be ok with it. At the moment she's pretty disappointed so I think I want to leave her be for a little while, and talk to her when it's all died off a bit.

52 Week Challenge starting balance: $939.62
Plus:
Interest received $0.30
Credit card payment made $303.00
Left over money from January saved into EF: $425.00
52 Week Challenge closing balance: $1,667.92

January was a very low income month for my husband, so we cut our spending right down. The only bill we had to pay other than our mortgage and other set bills was a gas bill of $113, so we were lucky there also.

I left my pay sitting in the bank account our bills get deducted out of and was ready to use some of that if needed. (B & I agreed a long time ago that because my pay is always paid on the same day of the month, I pay the house bills. Because his income varies so much he pays the business bills and our spending money. I admit it's not as romantic as the couple who puts all their savings in one bank account but it means that because things are slightly separated, it is easier to handle. At my last job I was getting paid fortnightly and he weekly, and we used to have the money in the same account and it was a nightmare because it was so easy to spend on that one thing that would cause a debit to bounce. Now the accounts are separate, everything gets paid as needed).

Anyway, we only needed $110 from there. There was actually $925 left over but because I wanted to pay a water bill of $315 and my monthly balance transfer payment of $303, I simply put $425 into the EF - will put the other $500 in on around payday.

I actually can't believe there is that much left over from my pay! Having not much in the way of bills to pay was helpful. Probably the other thing that was helpful that we simply used what B had for spending money, even though it was low. So we were shopping at Aldi to bring groceries down, we went away camping which is super cheap because I tend to be of the belief that when we camp we don't shop so I get everything beforehand and then we have no spend days because we're enjoying ourselves camping and making the best of being in the outdoors. I spent $80 on clothes that were needed. We went out for three meals - the most expensive being on Sunday morning for brunch would you believe! $50 for two people having pancakes, bacon and eggs, coffee and orange juice. (It was really nice though)

So, I've checked the EF and have updated the sidebar accordingly. The mini EF has $2562.02 along with $1318 of funds set aside for the Thailand holiday payment and my study unit. The maxi EF (the shares) unfortunately is down $100 (exactly, would you believe!) from when we purchased the shares.

I had to pay some money onto my balance transfer credit card by the 7th and thought I may as well pay the whole lot for this month ($303) to save having to make two transfers. There will now be $2129 owing on this card, so that along with the $104 owing on CC1 brings my credit card debt to $2233 - now $3167 paid off from when I started this last year.

February may not be as low spend as there are more bills, so far the water bill of $315 plus council rates of $390, so we will see what happens.

I apologise for the super long post, must make a habit of posting more often to avoid this!

52 Week Challenge starting balance: $868.60
Plus this week's EF savings: $71.02
52 Week Challenge closing balance: $939.62

This week's EF savings will be automatically transferred in the morning, so thought I would update now. Next week we will be over $1000.00, so that's exciting!

I think on Sunday, being the 31st of January, I will officially update the Mini EF and Maxi EF breakdown on the sidebar too.

***

The other day I lodged B's sales tax report and we also have to pay an amount towards his 2016 income tax. This is a percentage of his net earnings based on a rate the government give us. I looked at his earnings and worked out the tax payable so far to be $1904 and it turns out that in the first two quarters of the year we paid $1988! Very happy about that because that's something we don't have to try to find money for.

***

I had to buy catfood today so went to Safeway to get it and they had a few good deals on things- I spent $35 and got two weeks worth of catfood, a month's worth of biscuits, coffeepods, dinner for tomorrow night, stirfry sauce and deodorant for B. We have now spent enough to qualify for the first week of the snowflake.

I thought we had to spend two weeks of $80 in a row but as soon as I paid for groceries there was a printout saying that I now qualify to receive $20 ($15 for spending $80 plus $5 already in my rewards balance), so that will be good to add to the challenge also. Not sure what will happen next week though - maybe I will do the rest of the grocery shopping there on the weekend, get the snowflake then, and then next week do the grocery shopping there again to qualify for week 2 by spending over $80.

***

I also bought a bottle of wine for $8.50 (marked down from $17, so it is a fancy wine). I have not been good with my new years resolution of only drinking one bottle of wine per week, so will aim to do this this week. The only reason why I may have more is if we catch up for a friend's birthday on the weekend, which is likely as we spoke about it last week - no concrete plans have been made yet though.

I am a member of a supermarket rewards program which last year was doing some pretty good deals. In August-September the deal was spend over $100 in groceries three weeks in a row and receive a $30 gift card - which I did so, that was a good snowflake.

Then they changed it for a while to buy certain items and earn shopping dollars to be deducted off your shopping bill once it exceeds $10. This deal sucked. All of the things that you could earn shopping dollars on were overpriced and not something I would want to buy. I'm not going to spend extra just to receive money back? I'm happy to spend there instead of elsewhere as long as the spend is roughly our normal spend.

So now they have brought out a new deal - spend more than $80 two weeks in a row to receive $30 in shopping dollars to be deducted off your next shop. Finally something worthwhile from them.

So far this week we have spent $62.11, so for this week just under $18 remains. This will be easy to achieve as we will need to do a grocery shop on the weekend and week 1 runs on out on Sunday.

***

It is a public holiday here (Australia Day) and usually we take Monday off and have a long weekend away. I didn't get around to taking time off so instead we decided to go on a mini camping trip from Saturday morning to Sunday morning.

We were going to leave Friday night but there were major storms everywhere and flooding (nothing like what the US was dealing with at the same time though!) so we left first thing in the morning.

We thought it would be fun to take the dog on a camping trip too! It turns out the dog is a little old for this though and spent most of Saturday tired and out of her comfort zone. She had a big sleep that night though so on Sunday morning she realised we were staying in a giant playground and was very keen to explore everywhere!

She was very happy to be home though .

We're not sure that we'll take her away again though because it looked like it took a lot out of her. She's 13 now, so does get more tired than when she was younger. It was a fun experience though, something out of the ordinary.

Jessie at the end of day 1:



A nice sunset while camping:



Jessie having fun on Sunday morning:

Another weekly payment went through to the EF, it is now $284.08, with the 52 wk challenge standing at $868.60.

Have simply been plodding along in Oz, and trying to do what needs to be done? Financially the New Years resolutions (plans) are progressing well.

Cutting down from 2 bottles of wine a week to 1 hasn't happened. Gonna need a whole lot more willpower for that one.

The other non-financial resolution was to keep the kitchen bench tidy; happy to say that resolution has fared a bit better.

I also had to do B's monthly sales tax report and checked on his earnings for 6 months: it is $28,223. This is up about $8000 from this time last year and that is because last year he was off work from mid October to mid January. How much have we saved up? Not enough. I worked the tax out to be $1904, I think he's already paid $600 back in September and we have to pay $600 in the next week or so. But at least there's 6 months to make this up so I'll start withholding more from his payments that come in from now on. This is why it's handy to keep a close eye on your earnings when you are self-employed.

Financially our weekend was fairly quiet. We are still watching our pennies as it will be a little while until B is back to getting full week's pays.

Our groceries came in at $136, which was higher than the $120 I had allowed but we ran out of a lot of toiletry items. There were a few other things bought here and there, but in the end we ended up spending about half of what we normally spend, which was good. I can see that next week we have money set aside at a half week's pay. Still not dipping into savings yet so that's pretty great! We may have to dip into something to cover B's car lease payment, or maybe we'll be ok and not have to - time will tell.

Doing this exercise of 365 days of things that make me smile makes me realise that really there are so many little things in my day that make me smile, sometimes it's hard to choose! And a lot of those don't involve spending a lot, which is awesome .

Day 14:



Settling down on the couch with a nice glass of wine on a Friday night. Ceejay74 here is my wine glass kind of like yours .

Day 15:



My Body Balance class. This is a combination of yoga and pilates, and usually by song 3 I am smiling. It is so relaxing and uplifting.

Day 16:



Spending time with my sister, who was her usual happy and chirpy self. Mum and I went to visit her, and took her out for lunch, it was a lovely day. She is intellectually disabled and in a government-run home on the other side of town (because Mum and my stepdad lived in that area). They take such good care of her. I don't see her often enough, but yesterday was a really lovely day.

Day 17:



Being lucky enough to live in a first world. Last night we were watching The Kingdom, and it just made me think of how lucky we are compared to other countries. A lot more freedom (eg not in a war zone or a risky area), electricity, running water, healthcare, etc etc the list goes on. When it all comes down to it, we do alright.

I got paid a day early (probably should put that as a thing to be grateful for! As well as having income) so have made a couple of payments which can be added to the 2016 52 Week Challenge.

Starting balance: $226.04
Plus:
Mortgage repayment (572.52-300) = $272.52
EF: $71.02 (will be coming out tomorrow so we'll add it to this week's total)
Debt Repayment of Balance Transfer credit card: $228

Today's ending balance: $797.58

As we are in low season, we are spending so little at the moment that making these transfers feels like we are spending heaps! Not spending much though means that as yet we haven't had to dip into our savings which is a good thing.

Low season for us means that this week was B's first official week back but because of extremely hot weather and materials not being ready (because people are either still coming back to work or not at work yet from the holidays), he has only worked two full days plus two half days with no work tomorrow. It takes his industry a little bit longer to get back into full work mode. So weeks of half work and half pay are common in January and if things aren't going well, also February.

Anyway, enough of that - we are dealing with it fine.

The thing I am grateful for on day 12 is getting within a kilo of having my Christmas/new year's weight gone! That was a happy moment on the scale! Especially as the last class put me in so much pain it's taken 3 days to recover

Simply a stock photo here:



The thing I am grateful for on day 13 is having a relaxing evening watching tv with my husband and our furbabies



Another stock photo, just imagine there's a dog & cat here too!

For day 11, the thing I am grateful for is my all-time favourite tv show being played on tv. It is Medium, which got cancelled a few years ago.



I have every single DVD of all seven seasons and watch them occasionally. They very rarely get played on tv. But last night as I was going to bed I was flicking the channels, and it was just starting. Yes, I ended up falling asleep *very* late (as in just before midnight) but it was a funny episode and I so enjoyed it.

Yesterday was my first no-spend day for the year. I simply worked and went to a gym class, nothing was needed to be bought. I'm hoping that Wednesday and Thursday will be no-spend days.

Today I spent $10.50 on groceries: some more lettuce as we are using it up and having salad for tea tomorrow night, and a couple of Lean Cuisine meals because Thursday night I want to do a Zumba class which is around dinnertime. Am doing very well in January, with eating in moderation and exercising. Haven't lost the Christmas weight yet, but on my way.

Have a lovely day guys!

The thing I am grateful for is a late train! This was an earlier train than usual but my usual train was cancelled. So instead of having to wait 20 minutes I had to wait one minute .

Today I've been doing a bit of holiday shopping in the event that we don't go to Thailand this year (we won't know until the end of the month most likely). They had deals for Fiji - I worked out if we want to go, say in August for example, it will cost $1435 (roughly $240 per month for 7 months), so we may very well do this if Thailand doesn't happen this year. Would so love to know what we are doing, but as it's a very delicate situation, I can't ask yet. My friend had the operation on New Year's Eve and the doctors looked and did not see anything worse than already found, so she has to wait for biopsy results. Another friend advised that it could be a month before hearing back.

My fingers are crossed for her to be ok, I just can't wait to hear what's going on.

I find it hard to write blog posts every day, so am doing days 7-9 now (so Friday-Sunday).

The thing I am grateful for on day 7 is: Kobo! (my eBook store and app).



I am working through my Kinsey Millhone book (which is quite enjoyable, I might add) but yesterday morning while checking through my emails I received a $0.99 book sale email from Kobo. Their $0.99 book sales are great - they're either books they haven't been selling or new authors who are looking for exposure. For $10.34 I got two books, plus two box sets, one with 5 books, the other with 3 - so 10 books in total! I think I'm set for a few months . Some are mysteries, some are romance.

The thing I am grateful for on day 8 is: Gemma, our cat.



She was my valentine's day present to me from my husband when we first moved into our home. She is now 13 years old, and loves to lay at the end of my side of the bed and give me cuddles in the morning

The thing I am grateful for on day 9 is: Jessie, our dog.



She is 12 years old, and loves walks, playing fetch and sitting with us on the couch. People who said that diamonds are a girl's best friend never had a dog

***

Financially not a lot has happened this weekend in the area of spending. We are simply trying to live quietly and not spend much. We will be getting an iTunes card because we want to rent a couple of movies, and I will have to draw up a meal plan for the week.

One thing that has happened though is that over the break I got a new driver's licence issued in my married name, as I am starting to change that over. I then got to thinking that instead of changing my details with certain things, that I would assess if I actually wanted to keep them or cancel them and change to a different product.

My credit card that I have had for many years is an example. So yesterday I was having a look at different cards, and I looked up introductory offers. With the Commonwealth Bank, if I apply for a card and spend $500 within a month, I will qualify for $250 cash payment - that would be a nice snowflake! The annual fee is $59, so if they deducted that straight away and I got the $250, then technically I would receive $191. Not bad. I could make the $500 spend by simply putting groceries and petrol on it.

The application date closes 31 January, so once I get my new licence, I will more than likely apply for it. Of course, I will check the fine print more thoroughly before doing so. And if I do apply and get accepted, I will close the original credit card I have.

This entry will be short & sweet

The thing that made me smile on day 6 of 365 is the new Kinsey Millhone book by Sue Grafton (X) that I got today, using the gift card given to me by my mother for my birthday.



I have already read four chapters, and am happy to see that she is still her normal, witty self. I can see a busy few days ahead of me! This book has me absorbed already.

Today was my first day of work for 2016. The first half of the day was really hard - I was so foggy in the morning. By the afternoon (and my second coffee) I was pretty much working as normal. Have a really busy couple of months ahead of me, so pretty much hit the ground running.

We do have a couple of phone bills that need to be paid, and I will transfer $200 over for our living expenses (will be a quiet weekend). Not too many financial things need to be done at the moment though.

I am tired though, so will probably try to get an early night. Talk to you guys in the next day or so!

The picture I am putting up for day 4 of my 365 days of gratitude is the flourless chocolate cake I had for morning tea, it was sooo yummy.



B had to go to the other side of town for a work meeting so we decided to turn it into an outing. While he saw the client I found a cafe and set up a tab. It wasn't too spendy, $20.10 for 2 lattes, a piece of flourless chocolate cake for me and a half serve of eggs on toast for him (1 egg on 1 slice of toast).

Our day was slightly spendy but we probably go out for meals alone only once every 3 months so I'm not bothered. Later on we went out for lunch and a couple of drinks which in total was around $50. We also bought B a new shaving set worth $40 as his other one died.

I later went to the gym. B has been given a complimentary one month boxing membership and is testing it out to see if there will be no damage to the wrist he broke last year. I was thinking that if he likes it I may swap my gym membership for a boxing membership to go with him - that way we can go together. He may be more likely to go then, and we can work out our evenings around our classes (eg cook quick meals or reheat meals to cut down on time spent). The gym class I went to was Body Combat. This class went for an hour, was advanced and did lots of boxing moves and kickboxing moves. I'm afraid I only lasted 20 minutes! His boxing classes only run for 30 minutes so I could probably last; and the class I went to gave me an idea of the moves you do.

All in all a very nice day

Then, my thing I am grateful for on day 5 is the ability to just kick back and watch catchup tv on my iPad! I didn't get to the gym for my 4th day because I was too sore and instead watched the latest episode of Chicago Fire. Was sooo relaxing. (Note that the picture included is simply an image I looked up on the net)

My thing I am grateful today is:



The Zumba class I attended this morning! It was a fun way to spend an hour. Today is my second day of my four day gym streak. As somebody who generally goes to the gym once a week (if I'm lucky), I am starting to feel sore.

Yesterday I did a 2km jog on the treadmill, today a 1hr Zumba class. I am hoping to do a Body Pump (weights) class and a Sh'bam (dance) class over the remaining two days.

I may actually get complete use of my gym membership this month. Admission to the gym or cost of a class is $10.00 each visit. My gym membership of $20 per week is deducted each Monday, and this month it will work out to be five Mondays, so $100.00. My four day gym streak will use up $40.00, leaving $60.00 for the month, so I can then go a minimum of 6 times for the remaining three weeks. Totally doable. (Ps going to the gym may be expensive but I enjoy it, and I like going to this gym as it is close to home. There are cheaper options however they are further from home. I do acknowledge that a gym membership is a luxury and more of a want than a need, as the truth is you don't need to go to the gym to get fit; there are always alternatives)

Financial doings for the day were:
- noticing that I had forgotten to buy ice cream and peanut butter but deciding to add it to next week's shopping list (we spent $100 this week which is all I want us to spend)
- creating a new spreadsheet for our budget. We have had our budget spreadsheet from September 2012 so it was starting to get a bit full. I have kept the same format however, as it works perfectly for us
- not much else other than trying to budget for the next two weeks. I had to transfer $150 from B's business account to his credit card for a work expense and he has $375 left there for our spending next week. If he has to transfer $175 for petrol (a possibility), we will be left with $200 to use for food and alcohol and other spending money. Still doable, we just need to watch what we do.

It is different compared to a year ago because we do have money we can fall back on and withdraw if needed. This is a nice feeling. However, I would so much rather not withdraw until needed.

Have decided to keep the financial goals as listed on the sidebar, but to include all amounts saved (planned and snowflakes) in the 52 week challenge.

Non-financial goals are to decrease my alcohol intake slightly. I buy 2 bottles of wine per week, so my goal is to only buy 1 bottle of wine per week. I will probably spend the money saved on small items of clothing that I leave far too long to buy!

My other non-financial goal is to keep the kitchen bench clear and wiped daily. This is because just before Christmas we got these lovely bar stools to match the area, and it would look so much nicer.

We have kept the automatic savings payments as per previously, the first payment came out on Friday January 1. The 52 week challenge is as follows:

Starting balance: $0
Plus:
EF savings $71.02
Part payment towards balance transfer amount $75.00
Snowflake of discount on tshirt bought $9.00 (this was sent to CC1)
Today's closing balance: $155.02

I also need to note the insurance savings made last month. We now have $1,120 and by March will have $1,660. The payment due is around $2000 so there will be a small amount extra to pay.

***

We got back from visiting our friends yesterday, and had a really lovely New Years Eve. We are already getting back into the swing of things. I washed 3 loads of washing today, did grocery shopping ($100) and went to the gym. I want to go to the gym a few times before going back to work on Thursday to work off my holiday eating

***

I love the 365 days of gratitude and enjoy seeing what you are all grateful for. Here are my things:

1. Being able to show my face to all of the people who read this blog regularly. This is me on the top left, hello everyone!

2. Being able to go back to where we always used to camp with our friends on Friday, it was so nice being at this place again! (It's called Tocumwal, it's on the Murray River in Victoria). Ps on the bottom right is a koala we had to give way too coming out of the campsite, wish I could have got a better photo but it was not to be!

Like many others on this site, I am happy to say that we have carried no debt for our Christmas presents etc. We don't normally carry much of a debt for Christmas presents, perhaps $100-$200 usually. This time, nothing (which was a great feeling).

I stopped tracking spending on December 22. I don't know what it is with me, in normal everyday life I track constantly, but when I hit holiday mode I just cannot do it (except for the last time we were away when I was really motivated). Part of it was also because we saved $800, which is the spending money that B normally covers; so rather than eating into our everyday money we are simply spending money which was allocated for this purpose. It has been so helpful having the spending money aside.

I won't say that the money situation has been stress-free because with him being self-employed it is never stress-free at Christmas time. Funny things always happen with his payments he is owed at Christmas time. This time he got paid for the larger invoice but not the smaller, even though they were invoiced on the same day. So instead of being worried about that, I was simply mildly annoyed. I know we'll get it in a few weeks.

On the financial side of things, I got paid my Christmas bonus from work. I knew that if I got it, I would buy some bar stools for the kitchen area, and bank the rest, so that it can be put towards a study unit. The bar stools came to $207. They only had one in stock, so we are waiting for the other two to be shipped in. We took the other one home though, it looks very nice! The balance of the bonus was $800, which is also the allocated spending money from the EF to cover B's wages, so instead of withdrawing from the EF, I just used the balance of the bonus. The $800 in the EF will be left there until needed.

I have simply been charging things to my credit card, so have just paid over all that has been spent. Such a lovely feeling to have that all squared out and back to what it was before.

****

Christmas was a busy blur; it always is! Christmas Eve was my work do - we went to a Moroccan restaurant and had a six course meal, which was really nice. Christmas day we had the inlaws over for lunch for the first time ever - that was busy as we pretty had to spring-clean the house beforehand! Everything worked out wonderfully though. Christmas night was at my sister's house, which was also wonderful. It was a hot day, just under 97F. We got home and the power was out, probably because so many people were using their airconditioners. So we sat outside on that really balmy night, listening to music and having a couple of drinks. WAs a really lovely end to a great day. Then on Boxing Day we had to go to B's extended family, aunties and uncles etc, which is always a nice day.

Yesterday I was so tired from it all though that I spent hours watching catch-up tv and music videos, and basically hibernating, to bring myself back to my normal self, rebalancing etc.

****

Now thinking about goals, I can't seem to find a concrete plan. I'm probably too tired still with too much going on. I know that this year, from this month onwards, I don't want us to pay more than $300 per month interest on the mortgage. At the moment on average, interest is about $560-$570, so we would be paying $260-$270 out of pocket against the loan. By doing this, as our monthly mortgage payment is $995, roughly 70% of each payment will then work out to be principal.

I also want to try to live off much less than what I am paid; for two reasons: 1. pretty much whatever savings/debt repayment goals there are will be easily met, 2. I want to feel like I don't need to rely on my full pay to make ends meet, because I think that so many people tell themselves they must earn $xxx when they could live off far less.

I will also update the sidebar to show mini-EF (available cash) and maxi-EF (invested cash). This currently stands at $2135 available cash and $1138 invested cash. Maybe if I aim to increase invested cash by $3000, then the total EF will be roughly around $5k.

So my rough plans for 2016 are;
- pay no more than $300 interest on the mortgage (average of $270 per month x 12 months = $3240)
- save a further $3000 to the EF
- continue debt repayment to credit cards as previously. When the $303 monthly balance transfer payment is finished after September, that $303 will instead become savings for my next car. (Hopefully I don't need to buy for a while though)($303 x 12 months = $3636)

Estimate of total savings cost for 2016 = $9876. Based on 2015 savings made, this should be possible.

Apologies for the super long post, I really needed to do some thinking out loud! Now, must fall into bed as it after midnight and I am exhausted. Goodnight all!

It's Christmas Eve and festivities are now in full swing. If we're not celebrating, we're preparing for it, so just wanted to drop a quick line and wish everyone a safe and fun Christmas. Whether you crave relaxation or quality time with family and friends, I hope you get it. Merry Christmas, speak to you all very soon xxxx

Last week among financial things I made my final balance transfer payment of $303 per month for 2015. The balance transfer card should be at $2734 owed after the payment hits. It's good knowing that I will close the year out at under $3k credit card debt compared to $5400 at the start of the year.

I was thinking about adjusting the totals down to reflect what the balances actually are but have decided against it. The reason being we did actually save that money at some point during the year. It was simply used for certain purposes. Some of it was used on holiday purposes. Some of it was used to cover B not being paid in the first week of December. Unfortunately what was used on B's card I cannot exactly say what it was for; a lot of it would have been work stuff, fast food, motorbike stuff.

Eventually we will need to look at that card and work out some sort of solution. He doesn't need a card with $3700 credit because his spending habits are to spend whatever is available. Probably a card with $1000-$1500 credit is better for him. Big enough to make decent sized purchases (eg car stuff) but not big enough to cause too much drama. So eventually, probably after my balance transfer has been done, we will organise a balance transfer for him and a new card with a much lower balance.

Anyway back to end of year stuff. I am doing end of year totals now before christmas and new years in the event that we are a bit too busy for me to sit down and work this out, and I know that no more savings will be made for the year. My end of year total will be as follows:

50 Week Challenge $5300 + Banking the Difference $4379.54 + $90 Caravan Park accommodation spent + $210.00 Phuket Holiday Deposit spent + $35.00 Cash Savings =

$10,014.54!!!

Thank you all for sharing my first year of savings challenges, your advice and your journeys with me. You have all helped me to become a bit more financially responsible and you have all inspired me in your own different ways!

(Most likely by the time you read this I will have updated the Banking the Difference category to read $4679.54, with $818.00 holiday fund)

What does next year hold??? I'm not sure yet. I don't feel I need to do two separate challenges anymore. I think I will work out a couple of goals and plans, maybe possibly do one challenge like Imasaver but with a different name to $20 challenge. I have roughly 11 days to decide, so the thinking cap is on!

I've been using my email on my phone regularly over the last few months and it is so helpful at the moment because the stores I am buying from are listing their sales and discounts.

B wanted solar panels for the camper trailer for Christmas. The shops retail price is around $350 but eBay has them for around $190. B's parents said they will give him cash to put towards it so I said to put cash for me too instead of buying me a present. So $190 less $80 for our presents brings it to $110 out of pocket.

eBay had a 10% of everything sale so while the price went up to $195, we then received $19.50 discount. Nice! Thanks eBay

Tonight I am buying dinner sets for 8 people and cutlery. All of ours is mismatched and we are short of cutlery. First I was going to spend $40 for two dinner sets from Kmart and $70 for proper silverware from Harris Scarfe.

Then Mr Money Moustache got into my head! $110 is a big outlay on top of Christmas presents and food for Christmas dinner.. Do we really need fine silverware? We need plates and cutlery. Fine silverware is a want. Perhaps that can be a birthday present or next year's Christmas present from the Inlaws.

So I have found cute Christmas plates for $12 per set and nice cutlery at $15 per set, so I am hoping for a total outlay of $54. Hopefully they have what I want in stock