Life here is very quiet but still busy as always. We have been in Stage 4 Lockdown for the last two weeks, so mask wearing is mandatory, the government has severely restricted the types of businesses that are essential, we are only allowed to travel up to 5km from our homes with the allowance of one person doing food shopping and exercise is restricted to one hour per day outside. Our cases started skyrocketing scarily and it was very stressful watching the news for a while. I am fine with limiting movement outside to bring transmission down - it is not a big thing to do but will have a big impact.

We did not know what Stage 4 Lockdown would involve so I spent three days in the leadup to it buying meat, alcohol, and any other purchases that I figured we would need in 6 weeks. It turns out Australia's Stage 4 Lockdown is not as strict as New Zealand - we have butchers, bottle shops and takeaway still open. Hardware is open only to tradespeople.

So I put all the food, alcohol and purchases on my credit cards and have been repaying it back a bit each week.

B & I are both still working though which is good. I am also coming up to the end of my bookkeeping course so have a very busy month ahead of me. If I do not complete the course on time it will cost $100 to extend it and the extension is valid for a year. I don't think I will need to extend it but I guess there is a small possibility.

So we are not going out but there is plenty to do at home! Last weekend it was B's birthday and we celebrated by having a spa, takeaway for dinner and a virtual music night with friends.

We are not spending very much at all. I am just letting the money sit in our spending account for if we need it but we are spending far less than usual. We might have takeaway here and there but I am trying to limit it as we are in a pandemic and everything is risky. I am generally doing the grocery shopping by click and collect to avoid walking through the supermarket.

The news is saying that we will likely have a meat shortage in a few weeks because the government reduced the abbattoir capacity to 2/3 because a lot of the Covid cases were spread within the abbattoirs as it is a hot environment where the workers work close together so it was spreading like wildfire. The news is also saying that we will likely have a food shortage because the borders are closed so fruit and vegetables cannot be brought into our State unless the other State government allows trucks only. We are currently well stocked for food but I think I will need to think ahead for more things to buy as well as things we can replace the foods with if they do have the food shortage.

These are such crazy times... Our cases have been falling though so our Government is saying by Christmas we could be out and about (still with mandatory masks though)

Hope you are all doing as well as possible in these crazy times!

Because I'm trying to be diligent with our mega money credit card challenge I made sure that on our payday, the challenge payments were made also.

This week it was my turn to have $100 on my cards so I have listed that my share has been paid for the $200 week. I have split the payments into $33 on my NAB card and $67 on my Virgin card; this has been based on the proportion of both cards owing at the start of the challenge.

And because this week it was B's turn to have $65 repaid so I have listed that his share has been paid for the $130 week.

B started his job this week and is going well however they are a lot stricter than his previous firm so he is really busy trying to figure out all of the new practices. They are different to his last company because their business practices are really well developed - they even have their own app for payroll! All he has to do is put his password in at any time and he can see all his payroll information which is so different to his last company, who really withheld that information. I think it will be good for him working there.

Not much to report with me, I am plodding along. We did buy a BBQ over the weekend, as we haven't owned one for years and have friends visiting us so are looking forward to breaking it in!

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

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

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

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

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

We had pizza for dinner last night to celebrate .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well where have the months gone? It’s been forever since I’ve blogged and now I can see that my blog is now retired - it says the last entry is December 2018 however I know I did do a couple of entries last year but I think they got wiped when the site got hacked. Anyway I miss you guys and I have been lurking, just haven’t got around to actually doing a blog entry. Who could’ve ever pictured what is going on with the world right now? It’s insane.

I’m currently working from home and now it is going okay, I have some sort of a routine where I’m pretty much just trying to stick to the exact hours I work when I’m at work.

So what’s been going on in the last nine months? I went down to working four days a week and I’m still doing it - I have been doing a course which I’m still in the middle of doing, am halfway through it however only have a few months to go so might possibly need to extend it or really put a lot of energy into getting as much done as I can. This was all for the aim of starting my own business doing bookkeeping which I still want to do and have been putting a bit of energy into it. So far I have a laptop, one client but I’m not really trading yet because I’m still learning - I will wait until I finish my course before I decide to start a website.

So that’s what’s been going on with work - at home we have had a lot of problems with our dog and our cat in the last few months. They are both little old ladies however our dog who was going blind had to have an eye removed just before Christmas which was all pretty horrible and then we decided to have our cat fully checked out and it turned out that her kidney disease became really advanced and she had blood in her urine which means that over 70% of her kidneys have been lost. Unfortunately we had to make the decision to put her down, at the start of March. It was so hard saying goodbye to her but we were able to have the vet come to the house and she was able to be euthanised in her favourite spot in the garden surrounded by us. We miss her so much but it was the best thing to do so that she would not pass away in pain. Last week we found out that our dog has an ulcer in her good eye and it was very touch and go but by Thursday the vet said that she was over the worst stage but it will still take a month to heal and we are not sure if she can keep the eye. The ulcer is very serious and she requires medicine every four hours so I am lucky to be able to work from home to be able to do this. All the same though we decided that if they say that she has to have the eye removed as she is now 17 we won’t put her through that and so we may possibly put her down instead... it’s so hard being without the cat and think that we may not have the dog either is heartbreaking but she shouldn’t be in pain so like the cat we have to do the best thing for her.. hopefully it doesn’t come to that though as she seems to be recovering well.

Financially we are ok. The credit card debt is higher than before (mainly due to lots of vet bills and travel expenses due to our upcoming trip) but we are trying to control it. I always find though that when I am blogging and talking to you all I am much better with managing debt and savings as you all keep me accountable 😊.

In terms of savings we have $5750 towards my next car plus around $3000 in shares. Due to market volatility we have lost around $1000-$1500 but as we won’t be selling anytime soon hopefully it will all come back up. Anyway it’s good to have a bit of money available in the event it’s needed.

In December last year we booked flights to go to the UK to visit a family friend for a few weeks in July this year. As Coronavirus was starting to turn bad I had it in the back of my mind that it might not be safe to go this year and now it’s clear we can’t go so tonight I bit the bullet and filled an online flight cancellation form with my travel provider. We have decided that we will go at pretty much the same time next year if everything is ok.

Glad to be back blogging and looking forward to trying to stay accountable with you guys!

I tried replying to Amber's comment last week but my internet was playing up so much the comments wouldn't post. Anyway, we have no problem with managing our bills, it's more when we were overspending we were dipping into the bills money. Now that we've put the spending money and the bills money into separate bank accounts it's been much easier and we've had less problems.

The next thing to try and manage is our weekly spending money. While we've been having heaps of fun by going out lots, we keep on overspending and as a result spend less on groceries (because there's not that much left) and/or add to the credit cards.

Example: this weekend just gone we added $56.34 to my credit card for some of the groceries (after I repaid $68 on this card so I really wasn't thrilled). Then we were left with $70 cash for the rest of the groceries. So far $20 of that has been spent and we are left with $50. It should be ok. I've certainly had to be creative with what I buy for us, which has been fun! The downside of it though is that we end up lacking in the non-essentials for a while, so we are constantly missing stuff. Each week I try to be more aware though, and hopefully we can do better next weekend.

On the upside though we got dressed up for B's work do, went out for breakfast once and dinner twice and got takeaway once. It's fun, but that's where our money is going!

So I'm planning this weekend to be a bit more mindful of what is being spent, hopefully that will make a big difference.

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In other big news we booked the travel for our next holiday. We are traveling by boat to Tasmania with another couple who are very good friends and taking the motorbikes and will do a 7 day ride around Tasmania. We are so excited, it will be great.
The boat fares up and back are $1000 so the plan is to buy Christmas presents with December's pay and to give the money for the fares from January's pay.

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Another exciting development is I had my last physio session during the week!! No more paying $105 per visit, no more tiny lunch breaks on those appointment days and I slowly get to wean myself off the early morning rehab exercises. As of this week I do four mornings with a day off during the middle of the week. (On this day instead I attend to little financial things that need doing eg paying bills, updating spreadsheets etc - I've really missed having this time because it's so hard to do after work).
I was ecstatic and absolutely over the moon on Tuesday when I got told no more appointments are needed!!

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That is all for now, hoping you all have a lovely weekend!!

Wow it's been a while since I've blogged! I don't completely remember what happened in September but we celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary last month by going out on a motorbike ride to a nice lunch and then visiting wineries, which was definitely a treat!

At the start of this month we went on a short holiday to Perth, which is two states away, to visit one of DH's old friends who only just moved back to Australia, to spend time with him and meet his family. We had a great time socialising, eating out, visiting wineries in their Swan Valley region and sightseeing in Perth and along their coastal region. It was great to see his friend and his family were lovely, his partner was great to get along with and 2yo son was super cute.

Flights were $1000 for the two of us and we spent $1460 for the period 6-11 Nov (5 days) - as well as eating out and drinks, we hired a car which was $467 in total. We saved $1000 spending money last month and the flights are all repaid, everything is now repaid in full. It was a great trip.

That was the first week of November done pretty well . Perth is three hours ahead of us and amazingly we had worse jet lag than coming back from Thailand, which is an eight hour flight away! Thailand is four hours behind us so maybe that has something to do with it.. all I know is I wasn't getting sleepy until 1.30am because that was 10.30pm Perth time! It took until the middle of last week until we were back to normal. Well worth it though .

I'm not even sure what happened last time I wrote but here's a small financial thing I did a couple of weeks ago - dyed my hair successfully for the first time!

My hairdresser is great and much cheaper than hairdressing salons at $110 for a half head of foils. I always said that if I stopped going to her I'd dye it myself because generally what I get done is nothing magnificent really, just touching up my regrowth and a haircut.

So our security doors were getting installed at the same time as the hair appointment so I tried rescheduling however she didn't have anything for the next month so I got to try out my experiment! I watched some videos on YouTube and then went to a hair supplies shop and they worked out what I would need, the best colours and gave me instructions plus directions on how much of each.

All up it cost $106 however with their ratios I still had half a bowl of dye left over so I actually have enough hair dye left in the tubes for another two dyes! So instead of $110 for foils and haircut it was technically $33 for a tint (per use). I will go back to her in October however as the December appointment is at 6am I am thinking of cancelling that then and doing the tint then too.

Week 28 saw me back at work except for Thursday morning when I had the appointment with the cardiologist. He didn't think my heart problem was too major and thought that my friend's suggestion that it could be linked to thyroid issues (in my case the adrenal glands) was valid so ordered a thyroid test as well as getting me to wear a heart monitor for 24hrs next month. There was no charge for that appointment as it was bulk billed.

The collarbone got better as the week went on and not much was needed in the way of painkillers by the end.

Tuesday was our 19 year anniversary so went out for dinner to celebrate, which was nice. We also went out to lunch on Saturday and to dinner on Sunday night with friends who were visiting.

On Saturday we had two really big spending items (as well as my operation lol) in the way of the security doors I wanted ($1500) and the exhaust B wanted for his Harley ($600). The security doors were a quote which was about to expire and the exhaust was only one of 7 held in Australia (after that they would have to be ordered from overseas which takes a couple of months for this shop); so both were things that we wanted to order asap. Note also that these amounts are 50% deposits with the balance due in about 3 weeks for the doors, the end of the week for the Harley. With these purchases we can expect to live pretty quietly in the next few weeks as they are taking up the bulk of our money until payday in the middle of next month. We both believe they're worth it though.

Ps I see Shiela posting her blog as Week 29, I'm probably a week out? I'm not too bothered though because I'm trying to report what happens weekly and stay accountable, to me that's the most important thing.

Well I got through my first ever operation ok. I was so nervous but the hospital was really great and looked after me so well. I would highly recommend private hospitals from this experience. It didn't come off completely without a hitch though.

When I met with the anaesthetist right before the surgery he got the stethoscope out, listened and told me my heart is beating too fast, and hooked me up to a heart monitor. This told us it was beating at a rate of 8-10 extra beats per minute. He said we can still go ahead with the surgery but we will look into it afterwards.

After the surgery I was told that my heart kept on beating at the 8-10 extra beats through the entire surgery and that they would monitor how it is overnight, so I got moved to a high dependency ward and hooked up to a heart monitor. The next day they saw that it had mostly stabilised except for an episode in the morning so they gave me a referral to a local cardiologist (the same one B went to last year) and discharged me.

Recovery from surgery was pretty much a one week process. The first four days I had a lot of muscle soreness so movement was very limited. DH looked after me well and found out how much a nurse really has to do!!! There were a lot of pills to be taken and half of them required food to be eaten first so there was no sleeping in for him as quite a lot had to be done for me. He was so good though and had no problem doing any of it. On the Thursday he took me to the hairdresser to get my hair washed and blow waved which was really lovely ($70, so is definitely a treat!)

There were no extra charges for being put in the high dependency ward, we simply had to pay the $500 excess upon admission. I paid the $2158 to the orthopaedic surgeon a few days before, so now need to get the refund of $743 from Medicare and private health insurance. Probably the other big expenses (kind of) is the parking at $30.75 per day for the Monday and Tuesday - B spent as much time as he was allowed to be there for me. We also went out to dinner on Thursday night ($59.30) and went out to lunch and to a nice chocolate shop on the coast on the Sunday.

The only other financial thing I did was save $100 each for us. Our savings are now about $2600 each in my shares account and in the home loan offset account, so want to gradually add a little bit each month. Eventually when things calm down a bit I'll look at our credit cards as they're creeping up a bit.

All in all, I'm alive and well so all is good 😊.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TOTAL: $3013


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has been a horrible couple of weeks in the VS_ozgirl household.

We have had ongoing marital problems due to a friendship DH has with a female friend which I view as inappropriate. This is why we have been going to marriage counselling.

This has all come to a head a couple of weeks ago due to something I have seen which has made me upset and after a nasty fight, DH has agreed to end the friendship. However he ended the friendship and came home and said that he doesn't know what he wants anymore.

A couple of days later he has said that maybe we need some time apart to see if we can work things out and so that he will know what he wants. I think the reason why he has said this is because he doesn't know why all of a sudden he is doing what he is doing. He knows it's not right, however he thinks that unhappiness within our marriage is the cause - that we have drifted apart after many years.

This was not last Sunday, but the Sunday before. On the Monday night it was apparent that he needs to be elsewhere. He went to one of his best friend's houses for dinner on Tuesday and his best friend (male friend, not the person in question) and his partner agreed to let him stay for a bit.

He went to marriage counselling on his own last week and had a big talk with the marriage counsellor. The marriage counsellor told him not to stay away from home too long as it will become hard to re-interact. He has to go to the counsellor again this week and then we are to go together next week.

He has been at his friend's house since last Wednesday night. We went out to dinner last Friday to talk things out and it seemed promising, however he has been coming around each day of the weekend to do things around the house that need to be done and it is looking less promising over the last couple of days.

I am devastated. I miss him so much. I have told him that he cannot be friends with this woman, and as long as he is our marriage will never work. He understands that if he is to come home he cannot have contact with her ever. Now he is not sure of what his feelings are towards me anymore, or if he wants to be married.

I have told him today that I love him so much, and don't want to throw away the nearly 19 years we have together, and just want him back home. And this hurts so much. He has told me that he knows I love him so much but he just doesn't know what his feelings are, but he just wants to work out what's wrong and move forward.

Last night I heard a loud noise and was scared so called him and just had him on the phone a couple of minutes so I knew that nobody was here and after talking for a minute he was crying down the phone.

He said that he doesn't know what's wrong with him and at the moment he has no feelings, he doesn't know if he's coming or going.

I don't think he's had a chance to miss me because he's seen me nearly every day even though he's staying elsewhere. I told him that when I went to the UK for 2 & 1/2 weeks I didn't miss him at the beginning because I was seeing new things but by the end of the trip I missed him and was ready to come home. I told him to take enough clothes for 5 days so he doesn't have to come home and hopefully he will start missing me.

He's taken some clothes but because I was doing washing today needs to get more and will come over tomorrow when I'm not home.

Everything hurts so much. He's texting me goodnight and it hurts because he's not on holiday, he's trying to work out if he still wants to be with me, and he should be home with me in our bed kissing me goodnight. He asked me if I wanted him to stop doing that and I said no, because even though it hurts like hell I'm glad I'm the last thing on his mind before he goes to sleep.

I had to put new towels out for the week and didn't have to put any on his towel rail because he's not here and that hurt.

I had to do grocery shopping for myself and our animals only and that hurt.

Because there's only me here I cooked up a big batch of beef and red wine casserole and will freeze about 3 nights worth.

I have cancelled all of our transfers into our checking account and credit cards and will transfer money over as needed. I need to work out what we have spent for the week and possibly put in $200 into our checking account.

I told him he can't stay away too long, but what happens in the next couple of weeks is anyone's guess. There will come a time in the next couple of weeks where he will be called to make a choice as to whether he comes home or we break up, and while I'm trying to stay positive I'm devastated in case we do break up.

I know there are far worse things than a break up but this hurts like hell.

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas to all my SA friends!

May you find joy in the day!

I need to wrap some presents and then go to bed, and in the morning make cauliflower cheese before going to our two Christmas do's (one with B's family, one with mine)

Three people died tonight in a car crash about 10 minutes away from us which is heartbreaking. Please drive safe and be careful at this very busy time of year.

Above all, enjoy tomorrow!

It's been forever since I've posted up a blog entry but as yesterday was my three year blogoversary (I think due to American time differences it could possibly be showing as today???) I thought it would be nice to put up an entry.

The last three months since my last post have flown by. This year we've had some personal stuff going on which has taken up most of my brain space (so I have kept up financially and have been lurking but haven't had the energy to do much more), but we have entered into the world of marriage counselling and I think it's been really helpful. I won't divulge what is going on but I will say that marriage counselling for certain situations is money well spent (and where we are going is not very expensive either which is good).

I haven't felt like I've wanted to discuss with family and friends what is going on but needed to speak to someone, and having a trained professional speak to both myself and my husband to tell us what we are both doing wrong and how to fix these things is really helpful. It's helped our communication skills and hopefully will bring us closer together, and strengthen our bond (which over the years has slowly weakened and we probably grew apart slowly until something happened which brought it all to a head).

Creditcardfree yesterday talking about her anxiety made me want to share a little also.

Financially, the spa has been repaid in full - we received our tax refunds in November so paid the outstanding amount on my credit card.

The Thailand holiday is now happening (we go away in March) and I now have booking confirmations and details of where to pay (it's my friend's travel agent). Payment is due in full 10 January 2018 so we have been paying instalments towards that.

We just bought my husband a Harley Davidson... A bit of midlife crisis here perhaps! Actually his current bike loan will be repaid next year and this has been his dream for a while, and the type he wanted is not common so we snapped it up. He said he wouldn't buy unless I could go riding with him too, and as I didn't mind, he bought it. We've been doing things like going for rides out to dinner and coffee and stuff, so it's been good. (Financially not so much but it's nice that we can afford it!)

So where we are compared to three years ago is very different. Three years ago my husband was injured and not working and money was very dire. 2015 was then spent rebuilding.

This year financial matters have not been at the forefront of our thoughts, other things have been going on. Another day I will look at progress at the goals on the sidebar.

I am hoping to slowly return back to normal, which for me is sharing my financial thoughts with my lovely SA family!

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

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

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

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

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

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