VS-from-Oz's Personal Finance Blog

After all of your advice, I applied for a new credit card. I've filled out the form online, have printed off the application ID which I now need to send out tomorrow with various proof of identity documents.

I looked up on creditcardfinder.com.au best balance transfer cards and currently they have a balance transfer deal available with Virgin's Velocity Rewards card (thought of you bluesfemme!). They also have a points deal available where instead of getting 1.5 points for each dollar of the first $1500 spent, for the first three months you get 3 points for each dollar of the first $1500 spent.

I worked out that if I changed the way I spent, and pretty much put all of our living expenses on there, we would earn enough possibly for a flight to Fiji next year. We're not going overseas this year and were thinking of going next year, so this would be helpful.

The balance transfer lasts for 14 months, which is ideal. I wanted to have a balance transfer for up to 12 months, didn't want to string it out for 20 months (some of the deals available), as I know it will be paid within 12 months. (My plan for next year's challenges as we will have a bit of an EF is to focus more on CC repayment than savings - possibly simply pay the credit cards back for the first part of the year and then focus on the EF). I have requested $4250 to be balance transferred. The balance after tomorrow's challenge payment will be $4297, so there may be a small amount to payout, assuming I get approved of course.

There is no balance transfer fee but there is an annual fee of $64 (half of the usual annual fee). The credit card's interest rate is high, it is 20.74%, which is a major deterrent in incurring any more debt.

Wish me luck!

I prepaid $60 onto my credit card for the interest charge and yesterday it got charged $53.50, so have counted the extra $6.50 as a snowflake in the Banking the difference challenge. Was so over the monthly interest charges that I started to apply for another card on a 0% balance transfer. Then chickened out when I had to put the employer details up - can't handle my boss getting the phone call! I guess this means I'm slightly embarrassed about my credit card debt because I so didn't want to have that conversation...

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We had $29 left over from our weekly pay, so I sent $24 over to repay the EF from what we borrowed. Now the amount owing is $275.93.

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B got paid his small pay for the week where he only worked 2.5 days. I bought more groceries last week in anticipation, spent $200, so my goal this week is to only spend $80. We need to buy fruit & veggies, some red meat, bread, almond milk, tinned cat food, lunch meat, eggs, and some snacks for B. Looks doable. I'm putting it here so I can be held accountable and will *not* buy extra stuff. Wish me luck guys!

Week 26 of the challenges hasn't been too too bad. We did lots of little things that weren't really that expensive. I bought more food this week in anticipation of B's smaller paycheck next week - tried to buy bigger staples, or slightly more of them, so that there will be less food to buy in the grocery shopping. I accidentally bought too much meat, so it looks like I may only have to buy one meat item next week. This is great, because meat is the most expensive item.

On Friday I treated myself a little. My sister's birthday is today and she wanted a body shop body butter pack. They had a special where if you spend more than $30, you can get an item half price. Her gift pack was $36, so I did something I rarely do and gave into a sale item that I didn't plan to buy in the first place. I got a lovely body butter in the blueberry fragrance - it is sooo nice. Worth $23, paid $12.

Then later on, on Friday night I thought about the new handbag I want to buy before B's birthday party. I wanted a new handbag, but because this is a not needed item and really much much more of a want, I put a $20 limit on the bag and bought it from EBay. This is the first time I have ever bought off EBay so I'm really hoping to get the bag at the end of the week with no problems. Cross your fingers for me! The bag was a good brand, a black Jag bag, for $20 and free postage (woohoo). It looks really nice and didn't break the bank either

Well, actually I paid the raise against my credit card. As it was a snowflake I added it to the Banking the Difference Challenge- this challenge has now moved from the $2500 area to the $2600 area, so a bit of progress is good.

I estimated that the credit card would be $3,992 at the end of the year, so then I figured if I pop the raise of $40 per month on there too, by the end of the year 6 x $40 = $240 will be paid, leaving a balance of $3,752 - which is just slightly over a month's pay for me!!!

It will feel so much more manageable to be able to repay!!! I can see that the balance will drop down quickly after that.

On another note, I have been busy party planning the last few days. I'm using a really helpful app to keep track of guest rsvps, how long until the party and the to-do list. I'm pretty confident that it will all run smoothly. My sister Inlaw is really talented at making birthday cakes and has offered to make B's birthday cake as a present for him, which is really sweet.

Three weeks ago I stopped my banking the difference challenge where whenever there is a bill reduction the difference gets saved away, due to saving for the party. So I've been paying bills and not saving the reductions and it's been killing me!

We had $6 left in our checking account after weekend spending so I thought I might pay it back against the money we borrowed from the EF. Then I thought maybe just a couple of small bill savings too??

Last week we paid for business insurance, the home and B's phone bill. The savings on the first two are $15.23. B's phone bill is $78.00 less than last year but that looks a bit unattainable at the moment.

So I repaid $21.23 ($6 unspent & $15.23 bill savings). Previous amount owed to the EF was $321.16, new amount owing $299.93. Getting back to normal!!

We're now at week 25, which is exactly halfway through the 50 week challenge. It's so nice to see that yes, we've saved/repaid all that on the sidebar!

This week, as of yesterday, my credit card fell just below $4.5k owing, which was pretty exciting. I've allowed myself to really enjoy that, because I think it will be a little while before it dips down below $4k. In fact, at 31 December (if there were to be no more snowflakes) it will be $3,992.18. So, it will be a little while yet.

Yesterday I got a CPI raise at work (where you are compensated for inflation as per the annual inflation rate of the country you are living in). This year it was 1.3%. I'm really happy to work at a place where you get paid CPI each year, because as I was saying to my boss yesterday "imagine working at a place where you have the same job for 5/10 years and the pay doesn't go up yet the living expenses do??" and he said yeah, people usually have to leave then just to be compensated for what they are actually worth. Glad that's not me! Here the larger organisations (I am certain the banks pay CPI, because my sister used to work at a bank and she got it) pay CPI as a standard thing, but smaller businesses I'm not so sure about. I never got it at the real estate agencies I worked at (two) and I'm not sure about the other accounting firm, it was so long ago. Anyhow, as of the 15th of this month, I will receive an extra $40 each month, it all adds up.

In other news, on Thursday night we did something fun and went to see the band we are having play for B's party. It is a friend of his, and it turns out this is their first gig in five years! (Because it's B's friend, he gave us a cheaper rate of $600, normally you would pay at least $1000) They were a bit rusty in places, but when their songs came together, they sounded really great! They rented out a studio room and we got to listen to them jam - never ever been lucky enough to do that, it was a cool night. I had a headache yesterday but it was worth it

Here, we are getting the coldest weather we've had in 15 years, it is so cold! It was a no spend day simply because I couldn't bear to leave the house! The dog got walked before the rain came but other than that the only time I went outside was to hang the washing out. Send me some sunshine guys!!!

So grateful for heating and hot drinks

Hoping you're all having a lovely weekend

Lots of goings on today!

Firstly I received a snowflake. For my online study unit I bought a book and then found that I had an older version from a couple of years ago and am allowed to use it, so returned it and received the refund today of $109.76. Postage to send it was $23.15, so net snowflake is $86.61. As I am not collecting snowflakes and the EF is owed $407.76, I transferred $86.60 to the EF, and now $321.16 remains owing.

The $86.60 is on my credit card so I transferred cash from our weekly spending money and need to use the $86.60 for weekly expenses. Had to pay back $17 for alcohol bought and $20.52 for petrol (they were bought ahead for this weekend), and bought coffee pods online (more below) for $22.50 and grocery items tonight for $7.04, so $19.54 remains to be spent. This may simply be next week's petrol expense I think.

I have coffee pod machine (which I love dearly) and have been reading backlash about the fact that once the coffee pods are used they cannot be recycled (Nespresso) and simply sit in landfill, which is a huge problem. The cheaper pods I often buy (Piazza L'Or) are not much better. However I have read about a better more environmentally friendly coffee pod made by a NZ company called Eco Caffe, where their pods are biodegradable. Today I ordered two sleeves a trial. They are the same price as Nespresso so are not cheap but when I think of the environmental benefit, I think it is an expense worth paying. The two sleeves are $14.80 with a postage charge of $7.70 (ugh). If you order more than $100 worth of pods, postage is free. So if they taste ok and I can buy that amount (depending on the useby date on the box - will have to look when I receive the two sleeves), it's about as cost economical as I can get it. (And I would have, say, four-five months worth of coffee pods- kind of like Toilet-Paper-Tracker with her tissues!). We'll see how this idea pans out.

Finally, we received the remaining two invoices, so have the party money saved away, which is a big relief. We are not out of the woods yet with him though, because they are still behind with their invoice payments (just not as behind). He also only will have worked for 2.5 days of this week so will not be invoicing out, so I am currently looking at the invoices he has owing and I can see already that in between slow payments and one week of nothing billed out, it's only the 8th but we will need to watch our money carefully to be able to make the car payment, his motorbike payment and superannuation (in total $1405) which is due at the end of the month. So I'm happy we have the party money but still a bit worried, not quite in comfort zone yet! A quiet week this week it will be!

Week 24 ended up going pretty smoothly. I was stressed out last week about having to spend for a birthday party at the last minute when we didn't really have a lot of money available but it ended up ok.

I got invited out with my friends on Friday night, so I drove and had wedges with sweet chilli sauce and sour cream ($9) and bought a wine and soft drink, so did not spend much. I bought a perfume for the cousin worth $30 and she really loved it (was good because it was worth $60 and I have it, it's a great perfume called Wish). B found out we can bring our own alcohol which saved about $40. The restaurant was expensive, $70 for the both of us, so at least we didn't have to pay for overpriced alcohol! Groceries were as cheap as I could get - $94, which is what I was spending for us when B was off work. It was B's turn tonight to host the poker party (his Monday night event) so we spent $38 on food for entertaining- he did a beef casserole for 8 and I managed to score a plate (yum!).

We did have to draw some money again from the EF but not as much as last week - $142, $45 to cover the shortfall from spending and $97 to cover B's petrol for the week. Total amount now owed back to the EF is $407.76.

This week we are hoping B gets paid for all old and current invoices so then we can have the party pretty much paid for and start getting back to normal. I want to have the party money well ahead of time so that we can enjoy his birthday and make it a memorable occasion instead of it being a stressful occasion!!

Now for something I consider pretty exciting.. Every time my football team wins I save $1 for every point they win by. This weekend they won by 110 points!!! Their biggest win against this team in 119 years. I actually owe $2 for a win a couple of weeks ago and now $110 for last weekend's game. I felt like celebrating so thought you know what, I'm going to turn their winnings into a mini holiday fund! Travel is a big part of who I am and what I love- I love at least one holiday a year. So I worked out the winnings and have adjusted my sidebar accordingly. Currently there is $270.00 there.

The mini-holiday fund can be a contribution towards a holiday or perhaps simply a leisure event. I'm just giving these dollars a particular purpose. Our wedding anniversary is in October this year and we haven't really planned anything because our focus is on the party. For $270.00 we can get a room in the best hotel in Melbourne (marked down from $400), so we could go out for a really nice dinner and a great hotel room is already paid for. Or we could put that towards three nights in Port Douglas, Queensland ($100 might have to be paid out of pocket). Flights up there and back are pretty cheap. Swanky hotel or fun in the sun, what would you guys choose? Decisions decisions

B got paid and after tax we have saved the majority of this invoice - $1470. Two more invoices to go and $2230 left to save. I can't wait to have it saved because I'm out of my comfort zone with having to save this much money in such a short amount of time - the anxiety I am experiencing is my indicator. $1470 is just under 40% of the required amount, I am reminding myself of this. And reminding myself that this will be a great night, and worth the anxiety.

B keeps telling me that we still have 5 weeks to we don't have to save so hard, but I worry that something expensive could come up and derail us, so it's better to get it over with. Even if the expensive thing is simply a slow-payer for his business! I do look forward to getting back into the challenges too - the mortgage dropped again, now it's $995 per month with a saving of $183, looking forward to adding that saving to the challenge, trust me

Invitations got sent out to everyone this week, so that is an important thing done.

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All of the talk on this site about retirement funds has made me want to check mine - I really only look at the annual statements and that's it. Last year at 1 July it was $69000. So I decided that on 1 July I would get out the statement from last year and register to log into the website and check everything there. I did that, and found that it has increased to $79031! My current pay is $55000 per year, however I'm not sure that I would need that as a retired person, I'm imagining I could get by on $40000 a year. Remembering Ceejay74's post a while ago about saving amounts by looking at the annual pay and multiplying it by x depending on how old you are - I am 37, so would fit into needing 2 x times my salary in my retirement fund. If the market continued in this fashion I could have my actual annual salary by 40 multiplied by 2, but currently it is sitting at 2 x $40000, so I am happy with that.

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My gripe: my inlaws are lovely but have become accustomed to eating out at every birthday, which is so expensive! We had to go out for the MIL's birthday last Sunday and his cousin's birthday is this weekend. (Close family) The uncle told us that she just wants to go out with friends for her 30th. Now we get a phone call today that we the family are to go out a restaurant in an upmarket suburb for the family celebration the following night! Grrr. Two days notice is pretty rude for something where you need to buy a present, pay for two dinners and drinks. Do they think we're rolling in it and would just happen to have a spare $150 to blow??? No, they obviously didn't think.

To cut costs I told B that we would buy her present, not put in with his sister (she likes buying vouchers, so will ask for $50, whereas I will shop around and spend around $30 - I'm thinking perfume of some sort), and to call back his uncle and ask him if the restaurant has BYO alcohol (a lot of chinese restaurants do).

I know, looking at the bigger picture, it is good to have family that do these things and are close, and we will get to have a nice meal. Hopefully we can bring our own alcohol too to cut costs too. I told B that we will not be spending a lot on food this week - we have bulk bought so only need to buy meat and vegetables, everything else we have. We have a spaghetti sauce and spaghetti, so just need mince, and I am thinking instead of having steak etc of just buying a big packet of sausages and eating that a few different ways.

Apologies for the super long post! I am constantly telling myself to relax and not be so anxious - I figure if I keep doing this, keep breathing and going to my happy place, everything will all work out and it will all be fine.

The moment I've been waiting for has arrived! We're halfway through the two challenges created, yay. So to officially mark where we are $2438 has been saved for the 52 week challenge and $2458.04 has been saved for the Banking the Difference challenge, a total of $4896.04 saved. Woohoo!

Credit card debt is roughly $7.5k now ($4541 for CC1, $3003 for CC2, so rounding down we can say $7.5k), down from $9.1k at the start of the challenge. The EF was $2651 (up from $0) but unfortunately I had to withdraw $265.76 to cover the balance of personal and business spending expenses for the week. And then there's also $745 in the mortgage home offset account.

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With the savings for the party, we have enough to cover expenses and live on the bare minimum because we are short $4200 which I've earmarked as to be put straight to the party when these funds arrive. So we have the option of using credit cards to cover the shortfall or borrow from the EF. As we have the choice to choose from either I'm going to borrow from the EF. The EF is held in an online trading account separate from our bank (mind you I don't think I've traded for a couple of years! That will change as the EF grows) and earns a pitiful amount of interest, so while we might not earn interest there, at least we're not going to be paying extra interest on the credit cards.

Last weekend we had a birthday party at a restaurant so that was expensive and had to repay $265.76 on our credit cards that we overspent. I'm going to start a tally of how much needs to be paid back to the EF, so far $265.76.

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B's earnings for 11 months of the year are now $37633, tax payable $3777 (up from $3115). Will need to make up the difference of $662.

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Frugal things I've been doing: instead of buying invitations we designed them off a free template, did four to a page and glued them to a thicker paper backing. Found among our wedding invitation things 17 unused good quality envelopes worth $8.95 (woohoo) so only had to buy 20 envelopes. Envelopes, glue, textas and thick paper cost: $10.50.

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FrugalTexan inspired me with her banana and oat pancakes! I had a day off today so made them this morning, they were so yum!

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Super happy today, I feel like we've done so well!!!

We're now 2 days from being halfway through the challenges (June 30) and I look forward to marking the occasion with a post. It's all going well and on Friday I got our half yearly bonus from my boss for $980. I was very happy about that because I took $1000 out of the EF to pay towards my study subject and I was then able to transfer it back into the EF (did it Saturday).

I spent a lot of the week being really worried about how we will come up with $4000 in 6 weeks without relying on savings or credit cards. I could feel anxiety coming on all the time and it was giving me a stomach ache.. Had to deal with it! Then in a moment of a mishap the answer presented itself.

B got paid on Thursday but I noticed he got paid for an invoice dated the middle of the month while there were still invoices dated the 1st, 4th and also a couple of 14th invoices (he sent out 4 invoices that day). So I asked him what was going on and he told me he was working for two different guys in the same company and one guy is new and so far not so good. The outstanding invoices are for his work. B said he will follow up (clearly as this guy is new B has to be speaking with him regularly to ensure the right thing is being done).

I looked at what is outstanding- it's $4200, so after tax will be $3800. We paid a deposit for the party of $300, leaving $3700. I realised as the invoices are old, B has since earned enough to cover expenses that are upcoming and I can earmark the outstanding invoices as savings for the party!! Yay!!! No more anxiety! We may have to dip into the EF for a couple of weeks but it looks like we may need a few hundred not much more. Have been feeling so relieved.

Another relief is my MIL who has onset Alzheimer's/dementia has been ruled unfit to drive. This has been a huge worry because I know that she wouldn't have the reflexes to avoid an accident if a situation presented itself and she's so independent that she would not see reason and continued to drive. And the fact that even though she has onset Alzheimer's/dementia the tests for being fit to drive were yearly not quarterly- so much can change even in a quarter, I thought they were all mad! I know she will have adjusting to do but it's for the better good. People don't realise that driving a car is operating a piece of heavy machinery and that they could take somebody's life. Am *so* relieved with this decision.

It's now week 22 of the challenge and everything is going well. Banking the Difference challenge is on hold until after B's birthday as we now need to come up with about $4000 in 6 weeks

We confirmed the party venue this morning. $4000 might be too much but it's the absolute maximum we will spend. We worked out the list and there are about 100 people on it. So if all 100 people came, that's what we would spend. (I doubt everyone would come though, there are always people who can't make it to these things).

We were on track to come up with half the money by the end of the month but then B's drill broke and a replacement cost $660. That definitely cut into the profit.

We have been spending as little as possible and have been trying to be creative with ways to save money, we just need no more big repairs or things to be replaced. But at least we have savings there to use if needed. I just don't want to use them because I know how much effort went into getting the savings in the first place.

It's now very close to being halfway through the challenges (will be June 30), which is pretty exciting.

At June 30 there should be $2619.06 in the EF, CC1 should be down to $4564.38 and CC2 should be down to $3003.43 - definitely a better place than where we were at the start of the year when things were oh so desperate. It's a nice feeling and great to be progressing in the right direction.

We still don't know about the party yet. We wrote up a list and there would be around 90 people (B has a big family). We found a venue and are waiting to hear if it is available. If we have the party, we will not be going away on a holiday this year, we would just be camping. People say "do both" which is annoying, because clearly they don't get it - sometimes you have to impose limits or you will just be blowing all your money away on frivolous things, and what will you have to show for it? Wonderful memories but also not much else. Low savings. Credit card debt. I'm trying to move us away from that.

So still no decision but we have researched and are waiting for an answer back, so it's all in the works, we'll see what happens.

At the start of the year (in one of our many money saving moves), we switched B's credit card from the high rate of 20% to the lowest possible rate with the same bank of 13.49%.

Then I noticed (and mentioned it in some of my blog entries) that no interest was getting charged. I wasn't complaining trust me

Well last week we got a letter in the mail from the bank- we realised we made an error and did not charge any interest, as of this date you will be charged interest as per that particular credit card rate.

Thankfully they made no mention of back charging the interest, so I'm glad about that. And we got five months of no interest! I was able to include a couple of months in my challenge- I think around $120. So that's the end of that snowflake, I'm guessing monthly interest now will be around $35.

Had a really spendy start to June. Got my hair done ($105), the car exhaust system replaced ($580) and then bought a new suit ($285). I had to replace it anyway so I thought may as well do it to wear to a fancy lunch. The suit was bought on my credit card - I repaid $85 this weekend, have $200 to go. The car exhaust system and my hairdo were bought using extra money in the home loan offset account. Will be repaid by the end of the month.

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When doing B's tax I calculated how much he earned and to the end of April it was $34596, tax on that is $3115 - we have paid $2400 so have to start making up the difference, $200 has already been saved and we will make up the balance soon.

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One of my games I play on my iPad is words with friends and one of their new options is to play in another language- I studied Italian all through high school so I thought why not? It's so much fun!! It's like this whole new little world has opened up, am really enjoying it.

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Just finished a really great book last night called The October List by Jeffrey Deaver - it was slow to start (which wasn't a problem with me as I've been a bit too busy to be engulfed in a book - a chapter here or there has worked well for me) but last night I was able to sit down and read the last three chapters (which were long), did not disappoint! I guessed half of the ending but the rest of the ending took me by surprise, delivered lots of twists and turns, which every thriller should. Highly recommend it.

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Today I took the dog to my friend's place, who lives by the beach and went for an hour and a half walk with my friend and her 5yo son, was a really lovely morning

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And finally, my last piece of news of what has been going on in my life lately - B's 40th party. We didn't know what we were going to do for it, and B was ummming and ahhhing, and thinking of perhaps going away on a holiday instead. It looks like we will most likely have the party. I have no idea how many people will come - the list we drew up was 88 in total but some people live interstate, and it is likely that they won't be able to come. We're looking at having it at our house (there'll be a fair bit of work there) and B said to just do finger food, but we thought we will also check out catering. The caterer we used for my 30th now has a website (um my 30th was quite a few years ago now!) and their prices look reasonable - $15.90 per adult for 3 meats, 4 salads & 3 desserts, $11.90 per child.

We're thinking of going with the catering option (I can't see myself handling the food for 88 people maximum singlehanded!), and providing the alcohol also. (More calculations required there).

The party is exactly 2 months away (on a Saturday) so we need to do proper calculations (especially for the alcohol portion!), prepare invitations this weekend and book the caterer. I hope we go ahead with it, I'm starting to get excited! I already have various ideas going through my head.

Financially it will probably be a stretch, but I think once we start to have concrete estimations of price we will be more motivated to save whatever we have towards the party, especially as it's only 2 months away. If we go ahead with the party, the 50 week challenge will still be proceeding as normal, but I will be putting the Banking the Difference challenge on hold for the 2 months while we are saving for the party instead.

Banking the difference deposits made Thursday last week - been slack with my blog posts but not the actual financial doings!! Hope you're all well

shortest blog entry ever!

I'm logged in to the site but once I try to open the blog there are about four lines in jibberish saying "error". Can't wait to see it fixed!

The last banking the difference item for the month is the paying the difference between the current mortgage payment ($1029) and the previous mortgage payment ($1178), being $149.

We paid that right before the mortgage payment was made, and also saved our monthly insurance payments to the offset account too. There's now just over $1000 there. We're really starting to see the interest reduction too - this month the interest was $584, which is the lowest interest charge ever, I believe! Which is really great.

Yesterday I decided to take a personal day on Monday, aka RDO, except paid for out of my annual leave. We have a really nice work lunch on Friday but my hair is now showing regrowth (it will be 8 weeks exactly - I usually try to stretch hair appointments to 10 weeks, but what is one to do?). I had the option of home-dyeing but when I called my hairdresser to ask for advice, she told me she could fit me in on Monday. I had an appointment with her in July, so I figure I will now see her Monday and move the July appointment to August. Yeah, taking a day to get my hair done may seem nonsensical to some, but I will feel better. And work is so quiet at the moment that I know it's no problem at all. So it works out for the month of June, I will be working two four day weeks because we have a public holiday next week too. One thing to say - Yay me!!!

Today B & I had a day out together. He wanted to go to a camping and outdoor expo, and then I thought about the OurDeal voucher I bought back in March (breakfast for 2 for $19, a crepe or omelette each plus beverage), and suggested that we have breakfast out and use it up also. This is the first time I have ever bought an OurDeal voucher (like Groupon), and it was such good value! B got an omelette which is normally worth $19, and then I got a crepe with salmon and we got coffees each too - about $50 worth of food! We could see why this café was selling these vouchers though. Lovely café, lovely food, but it was not near the popular main street or any foot traffic really. It was really nice though.

Then we spent a couple of hours at this expo- $17 entry each plus $15 parking was not cheap but it was nice to look around at so many things. We got an orange juice each $3.50, and a hot jam donut, each $2. We also bought a book which has shows various Australian free camping sites plus maps ($20), and I got sucked into buying a prawn peeler & deveiner ($12) - looking forward to trying that one out!

Hoping you all have a great weekend, off to read the blogs!

As discussed last week, I've decided to change the 52 week challenge to the 50 week challenge so it finishes on New Year's Eve. I've now updated the sidebar and so far it's looking like we'll have saved/repaid $7477.84- who knows what it will actually be? Conservatively I'm guessing it will be over $10K, but time will tell.

Grocery shopping this week was really low for us- $87 (and if you add 1/2 of the fortnightly meat purchase being $23, total spend was $100), which is what we were spending when we had no money. No idea why other than I have been taking advantage of lower price bulk buys which I'm sure has been helpful.

Other spending this weekend- dinner and cocktails with friends Friday night $160 for drinks, dinner and cabs. We have to live it up occasionally. We added some lighting to our spa area $43 and replaced two light switches $20. The spa area only had lights at the front so when you were in it, it looked really dark. Looks much better now.

Also some clothes shopping. We had a birthday function on Sunday and our smart casual clothes are getting a bit old. I got a really nice vest, woollen with a fake fur collar, and a long sleeve tshirt for $95. Expensive but good quality and looks good, so would be happy to wear it many times. I got two tshirts for B for $55 but one didn't fit & he didn't like the other one, but can refund them and we looked up other clothes on the Internet that we can buy instead.

B had two days off this week and so he took my car in for a wheel rebalance and tyre check. $55. They then pointed out that it looks like we need a new muffler and gave us details of a guy who would do it, he quoted $150-$170. B takes the car there and it turns out we will need to replace the muffler and whole exhaust system. $600 quote. Grrrr. And the ceiling lining has completely dropped and they say you can't glue it, you need to completely reupholster. $220 quote. Grrrr.

So I thought how much is a reasonable repair allowance annually for a 12yo car? I thought $1000, and forums I have read say that too. So $180 new door lock last month, $55 wheel balance, $600 exhaust system and $220 reupholstering will bring me to $1055. B will do the car service so all we will need to buy is oil & oil filter.

I'm a bit annoyed but we're lucky to have had many years of virtually no repairs.

Last thing, my coworker just quit her job yesterday, she's a mother of a 10yo boy and works 1-2 days per week. Why? Because her partner wanted her to work more to pay down his massive credit card debt. So now she'll be working full time (and she always looks tired now) but yet he still can't get around to switching his cards to a low rate/zero rate! I found out it is a $30k debt on 20%, split over 3 cards!! I did a quick calculation for her - $6k interest per year and this has been going on for 6 years!! I feel sorry for her and annoyed with him, his laziness is costing their family a fortune and she will now be exhausted. Grrrr. I just hope there will be a good outcome.

Last night I paid bills but as B needed to use the computer I didn't have time to blog, I just updated the sidebar. This week's bill savings were $138.21 ($66 saved on my phone, $45 on the train ticket and $27 saved on the gas bill).

Last week spending was fairly low so I decided to put $35 on my CC, so have added that to banking the difference as well, as a snowflake. Now looking at my pay though it's time to rein in the spending so I'll be able to do a few things I want to do (before it gets frittered away). I have clothes I want to buy and I'm running out of month

This is especially because the balance of the study subject was $283 and books were $166.21. I'm thankful that this is all claimable on tax.

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We were planning on having a big party for B's 40th but for the third time he's suggested he would probably rather go on a holiday to Fiji instead. I think it's partly because his work payments haven't really been coming in (now apparently its this week. Hmmm) and also partly because I don't think he wants to spend all that money on a party. I will leave it up to him. Our 5 year Anniversary is this year so it would be the perfect occasion for a holiday and the prices I've researched are reasonable.

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I called the lost dogs home and the dog we found got collected, so that's a happy ending. I guess we weren't meant to have a second dog.

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I'm considering changing the 52 week challenge to the 50 week challenge so it ends on New Year's Eve, would be a really great celebration. At the moment it's TBA

Hope you're doing well everyone

52 week challenge week 18 was a very quiet week, and weekend.

Our big end of year deadline rolled around on Friday the 15th May, and as anticipated there was no rushing of any jobs required. I had one small job that I had to make a few last minute changes to in the morning, but nothing else really. We took a moment at 5pm to reflect and kind of said "well this is the quietest 15th May ever isn't it!". It's not a bad thing though. It means our hard work in the earlier months paid off and we were lucky enough to not have many things to delay or sudden major jobs given to us at the last minute. So I did have a couple of mini-celebrations I guess- nice wine, nice coffee, pancakes.

We have a cat and a dog which are now 13 (cat) and 12 (dog). Occasionally I might see another animal and say B how about another one? but for the most part not really. And B has always said two is enough.

But then yesterday I was walking the dog and came across a smaller dog who looks just like ours tied to a tree. The house owner said it was running loose and he didn't want it to get hit by a car, and hopefully the owner is out looking for it and will see it. He also gave it water and a bit of dried food.

Because it was a smaller version of our dog (a Jack Russell) I was immediately drawn to it. Seriously, the dog has exactly the same colouring and facial features. I took pictures of it to put up on a local site on Facebook so hopefully someone would see it and say there's my dog (you never know). After that it was time to go. He said "you can take it if you want" and I said I'd need to get the ok from the husband.

B actually said yes! I was happy and surprised. I told him I'd take it to a shelter first, give the owner a chance to collect it. Noone came for her so as arranged (I went back there after the dog walk to arrange) I took the dog to our local vet. I had to fill out a form and selected "interested in rehoming". They said the process now is they take the dog to the pound along with the form and she (the dog is a she) is kept there for 8 days and if not collected by the owner I will be contacted.

I was looking at the dog with the vet, and she said the dog is between 4 and 8 years. Because she is so small I thought she was a puppy but then realised around the eyes the hair is a bit faded. The vet thinks she is half Jack Russell half Chihuahua! Hubby is *not* happy about that but he laughed and said I'd roped him into that one.

I don't normally do spontaneous things like this but for some reason I was drawn to this dog. She had a really good nature and got along so well with our dog, it was like she was meant to be with us. I don't know what will come of it all though. She may very well be collected by her owner. If this is the case, I'm glad to have helped out a lost animal.

If she doesn't get collected and we do keep her, her age is helpful because she would be a good companion for our dog. A puppy might be a bit exhausting for a 12 year old.

That was the big event of the weekend, hope you all had a nice one too!

As B got paid the other day, and I got paid today, I knew we would be ok to not have to watch every cent this weekend, so I decided to transfer the rest of the Banking the Difference from last week's bill payments, which was the savings on the phone bills - $88.02 for B, and $11.96 for the home phone.

Banking the Difference has now hit just over $2K ($2,004.63 to be exact), which is pretty awesome. Now along with the 52 week challenge money that will become $7.5K ($7,516.63 to be exact). Who would think that just by making a few simple changes there would be such an awesome payoff. I'm so thankful I stumbled upon this site and have you guys to share my experience, cheer me on and inspire me!

As we've really been watching what we spend down to the very last dollar for the last few weeks, this weekend I'm having a mini-celebration. I'm also having a mini-celebration because tomorrow is the 15th of May, our big deadline for work, and this year we sailed through it. Work has become so quiet (I have still have various jobs to do though so I'm not twiddling my thumbs or anything) for before 15 May - this time last year we had to work back every day and it was so busy that as soon as you walked in the door at work your head was stuck in whatever you were doing until you went home - no time for thinking about anything to do with the outside world. So to have everything done on time is really great and such a relief.

I got some nice wine (for more than the usual $6 a bottle - I got nice NZ Sauvignon Blanc for $14 a bottle, $10 a bottle and one other cheap bottle for $4), and I plan on getting Nespresso pods instead of pods from the supermarket. We don't really have any big expenses such as birthdays this weekend so I'm not bothered if we spend a bit more here or there as long as it's within range. Also thinking of making pancakes for breakfast and spinach & ricotta pasta roll-ups for Saturday night dinner.

I also transferred $1303 onto my credit card - $20 banking the difference and $1283 course fees for the latest subject, which starts June 1. I will then be back to working a fulltime work and doing 10 hours of study per week, so am currently looking at ways to structure my time better. I didn't do too badly last time, but time management is crucial with these things, so you have to keep on top of it and not get burnt out, or it will become too much for you.

Don't really have any plans this week other than visiting my sister with my mother for lunch - I usually spend around $20 on these outings and have a lovely time.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Happy to say I spoke to my mother and we had a big misunderstanding. She meant as we don't celebrate my stepdad's Father's Day she doesn't care about celebrating her Mother's Day, and thought it was hilarious that I was upset because I thought she was deleting herself as my mother! (And I think she was happy I was so upset too). After discussion, Mother's Day has not been deleted in our family

She said my brother came around of his own accord (normally us sisters organise the social plans and presents) with flowers and chocolates and told her he got a promotion and wants to save for a house so she was very happy and proud (I am too).

B got paid enough for a week so we don't have to dip into savings (which is great). He's supposed to be getting paid for the rest of his work end of this week/ start of next, looking forward to it as it's been a while between paycheque.

We managed to get through the weekend on $304 - just, but still did it. Our shopping was amazingly $121 including food for entertaining- it's B's turn to host his poker night, so he made meatballs & risoni for 8. For Mother's Day for the inlaws we had to bring a dessert so I made a double batch of white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate ganache (one for inlaws do, one for poker do).

Mother's Day gift was $48 for inlaws, mine = $0. My mother has increasingly distanced herself from us and tolerates these occasions. But... I had the inlaws do & accidentally booked a get together with a friend so wasn't enthused about also seeing someone who really doesn't care about it. So I texted her asking does she want me to see her & I know it's not really her thing so I'll let her choose. Her response was father day doesn't exist here anymore (he died years ago) so let's pass this day onto the next generation (my sister had a baby last December). I wasn't expecting that! I was expecting doesn't bother me it's fine, not let's delete this day forever.

So I don't even know why I'm upset but I am. Of course I went on Facebook to rub salt in the wound because every single person it felt like was having an awesome day while my mother was just being a cold so-and-so. Grrr. But the rational side of me is winning. (And a day has passed) She is different now to what she was. That was then, and this is now. These things don't interest her. Family doesn't interest her. It's best to just accept it and try to let go of any negative feelings. Not everybody has the ideal family, and that's life.

Anyway, moving on from that.

A couple of good things. I caught up with an old friend last night who I hadn't seen in 6 months and we had so much to talk about! And still share lots of common interests which is really great! We are aiming to catch up again in the last week of May (unfortunately as well as having lots of common interests, we are both really slack with social arrangements), hopefully it will all work out. She has just moved 5 minutes drive away from me, and is sharing a beautiful house with a friend.

And the final good thing - my football team St Kilda won their third game for the year! By 7 points, so I sent $7 to the EF (So far the points has been 101 + 28 + now 7), and have added it to Banking The Difference challenge.

We had to pay for the 52 week challenge out of our buffer in the account (non-EF), there is now $141.20 there - not good. We are hoping B will receive money this week but I am preparing myself for a possible withdrawal from the EF (which will be as little as possible).

I have to withdraw money from the EF anyway to pay for a subject for my accounting degree, booking closes on the 20th. My work pays me bonuses which I use to pay for the subjects. So I will have to withdraw $1000 but then (unless things change for the first time ever) next month I will get the bonus and put it back in the account.

It was bill paying day today, but the outcome wasn't as great as what I would like. It is our third week of living off $567 less business expenses but unfortunately B filled up on petrol at the start of the week and the end of the week, so we had to pay for two tanks of petrol plus a couple of minor purchases he made (McDonalds was one of them). $265 later and we were left with $304 (ok there was $569 in the bank) for the week, which is possibly doable.

Then it was time to pay bills - water $278.85, B's mobile $119.97 and the home phone $105.79. Total savings on these plus the business insurance added up to just over $151. But then I knew that the bills account would be cleared out pretty much completely if I transferred the $151, and the savings account is paying for the 52 week challenge money so don't want to touch that.

Sooo... I decided the safest option would be to bank the difference for a couple of bills. To make it easier I simply picked the bills paid/due from between 1st & 6th May, which was the business insurance ($9.68 savings, deducted on the 1st) and the water bill savings ($41.95, the bill due date was the 1st - oops).

Total deposit this week for banking the difference was $51.63. Not the same as $151, but as the title states, to save some is better than none at all. Maybe we will get paid next week and then I can save the rest, who knows.

On the upside we are now below $8k combined credit card debt after making those deposits, which is good to see.

Looking like another cheap weekend on the horizon with the exception of Mother's Day for two parents, we will need to get some sort of presents, hoping to spend about $30 each and get a decent present.

I checked our combined credit card debt just now after the 52 week challenge payments got paid as I knew it was hovering around $8K (when we started the challenges in mid-January it was $9.1K) and as of now it is $8,001.56.

So close to being under $8K! At least next time we have to make a deposit it will be under $8K then. Progress is a beautiful thing.

In other news we received 2 possibly 3 snowflakes today. A cheque from our old car insurance for the overpaid portion on my car for the amount of $84.48 (or thereabouts- it's $84 something anyway). I received a Priceline cheque for $3.87. And Priceline have given me an offer of $10 off my normal foundation (this is a possible snowflake as they had this offer last quarter too but were sold out so I couldn't get it before the offer expired). Will update the snowflakes properly when they are actually banked/used.

Week 16 was a bit harder financially because we are waiting on some money from B's work & not sure when it will get there. We had $567 but after B's business expenses were left with $403. I wasn't sure how well we could live off $297 (being $403 less $106 52 wk challenge money), so used $38 of the $300 buffer in our savings- no idea why I picked such a weird amount!

I really wanted to go and see Fast & Furious 7 so we went to our local cinema (did not go out to tea first, simply ate at home & because this was a cinema close by didn't have to pay for parking). Still $62 including snacks though.

On the spur of the moment we decided to visit friends an hour away and stay in our camper trailer overnight. B was going motorbike riding with the husband on Sunday so we drove our own cars and I drove home first thing Sunday morning. Was nice to use our camper trailer without having to go for a big weekend away and we had a nice relaxing night. As our friends cooked dinner we bought desserts - $18.63 for the desserts (one of them was a really nice lemon tart), and $40 for petrol for my car - double what I normally spend but the car got a great run, which hardly ever happens- it's usually 5-10 min trips here and there.

We spent $65 on alcohol and $135 on food for the week, not bad amounts for us.

We turned our hot tub on for the first time since mid-March and spent a really nice couple of hours relaxing in it last night, a nice way to finish the weekend

Then B took the last $20 for his poker game.

We didn't have loads of money to spend but felt like we did a lot of really nice things (we also did weekly cleaning & laundry too so as to not get behind) and made the best out of our weekend.

Last weekend was week 15, and now in one section, the EF, we have hit triple digits! Progress is a beautiful thing

Last weekend was the first of three weeks where we really have to watch our money, because of B's uncertainty of when he'll get paid next- they're saying three weeks so we'll budget for that.

I prepaid over the interest to his card and then it wasn't charged (still on $0, yay). I normally would have counted it as a snowflake but he bought petrol for work at $96, so leaving off the $62 received, we had to pay $34. (So we had a $567 less $34). So this weekend our money situation was semi-normal really. Missed out on a snowflake, and while we couldn't afford the party savings, we still made the 52 week challenge (which to me is crucial, as we need to build up savings and reduce debt). Have to pay some bills next week and there is enough in that account to make the banking the difference deposit (estimated at $143), so as long I can do that, that's good.

We had a quiet weekend, saw a movie called "The Longest Ride" which was a really sweet movie (directed by the director of "The Notebook" and "Dear John"). With groceries, spent our old spend of $170, but part of that was dogworming tablets and we just seemed to run out of a few things this week. Looking over the month, we haven't actually spent that much on groceries because we were away the first week of April and then my birthday was the second week (we had lots of left over food that week).

I have been spending all month jotting down the things I spend and how long it takes to earn each thing as an exercise in money mindfulness. A few things I can tell you is, with both the challenges combined, have managed to save 11.7% of my pay (or 18 hours that I worked within the month). I was aiming for 20% but after the last couple of weeks, it's not possible.

It's really made me evaluate what I spend on though. I don't feel like it's made me not want to spend but rather aim for a few quality things, here and there. I guess I can tell you, the bills portion - housing, insurances, bills, door lock repair to car, dentist visit and insurance savings amounted to 45% of my pay.

I saved $10 on petrol because I filled up once at the second week of the month, for $50 instead of $20 each week simply because I couldn't be bothered updating my notes! They do say that if you fill up once instead of small amounts here and there your fuel does last longer, and I found that it is true.

As I started this exercise in the second week of the month it's not totally accurate. I'm great with tracking expenses most of the time but whenever we go on holiday, I am officially on holiday. No updating finances - the bills get paid before we go, we have some money to spend and what it gets spent on I don't note down because I'm on holiday and relaxing is my priority.

But I found that this exercise is great for helping me live within my means, and to appreciate what I earn and what we can afford.

On another note, B got told about a job opening as a Building Supervisor for a new homes construction company, so we did an application letter for it and sent it with his resume. He thinks it would be a good idea because of the physical toll carpentry takes on the body, he could have a point there. If he's happy, I'm happy, so hopefully he gets it.

Also, last week I had to go over B's tax and work out how much he's earned from 1 July - 31 March, and he came in at $30,814 with $2396 tax payable. As we've paid just over $2400 for the year, there are no problems with not having paid/saved enough. I wanted him to make $40k, and I think he would just squeeze through, if he's lucky. (Of course if he gets a job, we won't have to worry about this anymore)

Our finances have been travelling pretty well, so lately I've been feeling that maybe I don't need to have blog label "trying to survive the rollercoaster ride of my finances"... and then I'm reminded why I have that label up there.

1) to remind me that my husband's work is seasonal, so when savings get to a certain point not to get too complacent, because there are three months of the year where work is hard to come by and savings are needed.
2) because he's self-employed there can be big ups and downs.

Right now we're dealing with a sucky small business problem. Hopefully it will be short-lived, and expenses will not balloon out in this time.

He's been lucky enough to work for about 12-18 months (somewhere in that area) for pretty much one guy at a new homes company. The company pays weekly-fortnightly (some of B's jobs take longer than a week, which is the reason why I say weekly-fortnightly) and we've never had a problem with them.

But.... the guy changed jobs. (as these things happen)He told B that he wants B to do his jobs for him because he loves the quality of B's work (he's a great carpenter), and there will be so much work he should have 1, maybe 2 apprentices. We were talking about getting an apprentice but we're still slowly getting back on our feet after him being out of work so long. So we said we'd think about getting 1, but as we are being conservative, nothing has come of this. (We don't want to hire staff until we know for sure that there is enough work for them, otherwise we wouldn't be able to afford it).

So he changed about a week ago, and B just started working for him at his new job this week. B finds out that they pay fortnightly too, but there is a waiting period first of a week, so you are looking at receiving money in 3 weeks (not great). Day 2 of working there (today) and the other carpenter for this company, who happens to be related- it's a family owned company, finds out the supervisor has got somebody outside of the company doing carpentry work and completely cracked it. As he is family and has six employees, the new supervisor had to apologise and state that B will only be doing one job for him, he will use the family-owned carpenter now.

Lucky we didn't hire someone!

So he is looking at one week of work, which will be paid in 3 weeks, and the previous company he was working for do have work for him (luckily) but not for a couple of weeks. UGH.

The four months of no work taught me what rock bottom is for us financially, so I know what we can function on. We should be ok. But we are both on the same page (discussions have been had), that we don't have a lot of money to spend. That way if we really need something we can dip into the EF, but it's a last resort.

We have three weeks of $567 per week to live off including business expenses (where it gets dicey- B's car can cost $100 a week to fill if he gets a full week of work).

I saved $149 to the mortgage, as the difference between old and new mortgage, and the monthly insurance savings. I updated Banking the Difference, but I'm guessing that's my last snowflake for 3 weeks or so.

Wish us luck to make it through the next few weeks with little out of the ordinary expenses guys!