Mrs Frugalista got me thinking about the no spend November challenge. While I'm not doing nearly as well as her, yesterday was my second no spend day and tomorrow I plan on making it my third.

The fact that you are planning to spend on certain days only does make you think about what you are buying, and you tend to plan more. If I can get 10 days this month, that would be great.

Today I bought enough food for the next four days for us, groceries came to $56.61. I am then planning on not spending anything tomorrow, buying a tshirt on Friday and then buying required food on Saturday - I am hosting a small get-together with my friends so will need to pick up more food.

I have already got mini-quiches for hot food(we are doing nibblies and then later on putting some hot food in the oven, everybody will bring something each) and am doing a spinach dip in a cobb loaf for nibbles. Will no doubt buy a few more things but just a couple of extra things really.

On another note, I just paid some bills and among them was our water bill, which was a case of bill shock - it was up 45.51% from last year! Roughly $100 extra. We went through the bills and checked the gas meter, but later on I compared October's weather this year to last year and it turns out it has been much colder this year - we had 18 days where the heater was required to be on, compared to 9 last year when the weather was much warmer. I'm hoping we get a couple of months weather where no heater or air conditioner is required - November hasn't been too bad, I don't think we have turned the heater on since Saturday.

Challenge starting balance: $8,739.85
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- digital change $4.37
Challenge closing balance: $8,779.91

Our weekly EF savings were transferred over as usual, which is great but the two financial things of note were:

1) Our mortgage payment hit, and then interest was charged, the end result is we are now into the $117's!! New balance is $117,703. Very exciting. I don't think we will make $115k by the end of the year, but I do think we will make it to $116k.
2) My tax refund was received and was promptly sent back to the EF. The balance looks much healthier now! Breathing a sigh of relief.

Looking at the EF; the mini-EF is now $3,504.55 - this is the cash portion of the EF. The maxi-EF has only gone up $1 since last month! This is the shares portion of the EF. Thankfully the shares have only dropped a little bit; they were purchased for $3,826. So if the shares were at their purchase value the EF would then be $7330.55 instead of the $7,177 it currently is. Still it's great to be up into the next thousand, it feels like it has taken all year to get there.

***

Non-financial things were during the week we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary, then yesterday it was a beautiful spring day so we caught up on the gardening at home. We then said hello to our neighbours across the road and we had heard that the wife had changed jobs; she told me she was made redundant in the July of this year and it took her a full month to find a new job. She is the sole provider for her family; her husband has an illness so looks after the kids while she works. I told her I thought it was great that she was only out of work a month; she is really liking her new job.

Today we took our inlaws out for a country drive and we had lunch with them (I suggested this because we have spent the last couple of weekends with my family so thought it would be a nice thing to do), which was a really lovely day.

Challenge starting balance: $7,748.09
Plus:
- weekly EF savings x 2 $71.38
- Safeway rewards $10.00
- digital change $2.93
- Maxitrans dividend $10.50
- B's credit card debt repayment $180.00
- B's tax savings $403.33
- Phuket holiday savings $235.00
- my car savings $150.00
Challenge closing balance: $8,739.85

September was a huge month not only for bills but also because it was a five week month so October has been pretty lowkey. We repaid back the savings used to pay the bills and reduced our weekly spending in October to offset the overspending in September.

Still, I've had a bit of low-level anxiety with our money this month so have held off making savings transfers etc. Now that it is the end of the month nearly have felt like we could do it and be fine.

Among our snowflakes was a Safeway reward of $10, received today. That plus the digital change was sent over to the Christmas savings account; there is now $45.13 there, will top it up to $50 at the end of the week. Another snowflake was the Maxitrans dividend (small dividend but it is a small shareholding).

We sent another $180 to B's credit card - it is now sitting at owing $3012 - will be under $3k next month which is exciting.

I finally got around to lodging our tax returns last week! I will get back $1073 which will go back to the EF to repay the study unit; B owes $2780 from his business income which is due March 2017. This month we have saved $403.33 towards it.

I also saved $235 towards our Phuket trip; $1065 remains owing to be paid whenever we decide to go before September next year.

I also sent $150 to my car savings; normally should be $300 but we overspent a little this month so reduced it slightly. $124 was also repaid against the study unit.

While it would be great to be sending all of this to the EF, sometimes we have things which need to be paid (like B's tax) and things we should save a little for (like a trip which is booked).

****

Saturday's happy events were:

1. My sister and her husband sold their house for $70k above reserve at auction, which they were really happy about. My BIL is a MMM (aka Mr Money Moustache) convert and wants to retire in 5 years time (he'll be early 40s then). They are moving to the country and want to build a sustainable home so the extra $70k will definitely help their plans. Auctions are so exciting.
2. It was our 6 year wedding anniversary so we went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate .

Hope you're all well!

It's been an intense week. I had a massive assignment due on Sunday so spent pretty much every ounce of my spare time working on it from Tuesday to Sunday - about 12 hours. I find it interesting but felt bad about not really being present around DH. Was nice to spend this evening just relaxing and spending quality time with him.

I wish my work were open to me working 4 days a week so I could spend one full day studying instead of trying to cram it into every spare second of my free time but alas they have made it clear that they are not. Oh well, we can't have everything.

Anyway, after spending so much time studying I couldn't look at it yesterday, instead caught up on home duties after work that were much needed. Walked the dog, hung out the washing, caught up on dishes, cleaned the ensuite (really needed it), folded the washing, I think that's enough until next weekend. Need to go to the gym because I haven't been there in a while and then need to catch up on week 7 of study (last week, not heaps to do) and work on week 8.

*****

B has been sick on and off with the flu, went to the doctor for a flu shot and found out he has a combination of hay fever and asthma???? Not in his family history, we never expected this. They say it's only mild so we'll see how he goes with the puffer. He also has had a shoulder problem so has been given steroids for a few days and a referral if it doesn't get better. Doctors will be about $30-$40 after government co-pay and medicines were around $50. Let's hope he picks up soon!

*****

My spending yesterday was $4.12 for some watermelon for me, tomato soup for B and some chocolate for me, and $20 for fuel for my car - today was a NSD.

Another spending item yesterday (although not a cash outlay) was a $3.99 iTunes subscription for one month to Money magazine (it's Australian) because although I love flicking through the various areas of SA (articles, blogs, forums) it's important to occasionally spend some time reading Australian financial items.

Well that's all for now, speak to you guys in a few days!

Challenge starting balance: $7,581.56
Plus:
- weekly EF savings x 2 $71.38
- Safeway rewards $10.00
- digital change $22.14
- QBE dividend $63.00
Challenge closing balance: $7,748.09

It's been a while between entries, have been super busy with this studying and trying to keep all the other areas of my life afloat too. I have to do 10 hours per week study, and last week as it was a public holiday we went away and therefore I only managed 6 hours.

This weekend is a very quiet weekend so will most definitely be catching up. I have made up last week's 4 hours, so tomorrow and Sunday I need to do 5 hours each day. I would have done more during the week but catching up on home duties after work took up some time. I'm looking forward to spending some blocks of time to increase my understanding of the material; have been so busy I feel like I'm doing the work but not really retaining anything or understanding much.

***

Because I didn't write an entry last week I didn't note down the EF savings, so this entry I have put two weeks in.

The supermarket chain I have rewards with, Safeway, have reintroduced their old rewards program again, so after spending the required amount (I think it was $100), I got $10 off the shopping, which I sent to Christmas savings. They have introduced their biggest rewards deal ever since I have been doing it - spend $90 per shop there for four weeks in a row to get 8000 points ($80.00 off the next shop). We've spent $37.76 there so far this week, have $52.24 to go, which can be done on the grocery shop for the week.

Trying To Get Ahead with all of her change jars prompted me to do an experiment for the month of September and I have been doing it still. What if every transaction from our checking account we round up to the next dollar and deposit it into our savings account? I know somebody wrote that there is an app for that, but I didn't find it in Australia so have just been doing it manually. So far we have saved $22.14.

We also received a dividend of $63.00 for our QBE shares. They are currently way down in value so I am considering buying another 100 but that would bring our cash down a bit so am sitting on the fence. Our averaged out purchase price is $10.70 per share and they dropped down to $9.33 which is a year low. (It was also a big loss so I was a bit worried) Now they are currently just under $10, so still lower than normal but at least we have not lost as much now. Will see what happens over the next month before deciding. Was actually going to buy in about January, give the EF a chance to build up a bit.

I also added $8.00 to the holiday fund, so the balance there is $-90.00 now.

***

This month we are on a five week month so funds are a little bit short. Our usual spending money is $580 ($500 into our checking and $80 onto B's card to cover his work expenses and takeaway) so have decreased it this month to $430 per week into checking and $65 onto his card; so usual monthly spending money was $2320, with these adjustments and an extra week included it only increases to $2475, which is not too painful.

We did work out his tax though which will be $2780 due in March, so have to save $463 per month. Ouch. Oh well, it must be done.

And also need to start saving $250 per month towards Thailand. And hopefully we can still afford $300 for my new car fund but we'll see. We need to start saving for Christmas so may need to shift some money out of certain categories to make it happen.

According to my Christmas saving challenge we need to save $330 this month, and so far have $32 saved however it is only the first week of October however I may even re-examine Christmas spending money and cut it down slightly.

Challenge starting balance: $7,353.93
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $46.00
- my FINAL credit card repayment to balance transfer card $110.25
Challenge closing balance: $7,545.87

That day finally came where my final payment to the balance transfer left the bank account! I imagine I will see a zero balance on that card either tomorrow or the day after.

Only $54 left on my normal transactional card to pay by the end of the month, will do this easily. (In a week or so, must get used to using the balance transfer card as a transactional card to accumulate points.)

I'm so glad to be off of that debt cycle where I was getting charged around $58-$62 in interest on a debt I couldn't afford to pay. I'm so glad I just had this moment where I had had enough and wanted things changed asap, and got the balance transfer card and got off the cycle of simply paying interest on things which had long been used up. I appreciate credit cards now because you can have funds available at your disposal no questions asked, but do not ever want to get complacent with paying interest again. I want to be much more careful with it now.

Feeling like I'm in a better place than a year ago, that's for sure. Next month onto saving for a new car! (that I hope to not have to buy for a long time!)

***

I paid the third round of my football wins over to the holiday fund; now owing only $98. Also paid back $124 against the study unit. Study is going well but I'm finding myself a bit time poor and when I get tired, I'm worn out. Luckily this only happens every few days. I'm into week 4 and not doing too badly.

***

On Saturday my car door broke, this time my driver door. This is an ongoing problem; has happened between 5-10 times in the time of car ownership and each time it happens I cannot lock the car until it's fixed. The last time it happened was April last year.

The cost of a new lock was $200 plus some beer as a thank you gift to my father-in-law for fixing it $31. Better than $400 at the mechanic which is the going rate. This is the last time my father-in-law will do it though, as he is getting too old. Next time it will be either B or the mechanic.

Because funds are a little tight I used the additional money I was going to repay on the mortgage to pay for the door lock. Didn't want to draw out from the EF again, once this month was enough ($160 for the sewer blockage).

I really want to get the mortgage down to $115,000 by the end of the year and it looks like all other things going ok, we should be able to.

Challenge starting balance: $6,642.80
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $58.00
- plumber visit -$160.00
- addition to mortgage principal $259.25
Challenge closing balance: $6,835.74

The above transactions took place; weekly EF savings got deposited, I transferred over my team's big win (yay!), withdrew money for the plumber visit and added $259.25 to the mortgage being for June interest $559.25 less $300.

My team is now out of the finals so September is purely making up for the first six wins (if possible).

I also checked the EF balance on the 1st and have updated the sidebar. The mini EF is looking a little small because it is $2771.16 less $1445.94, less $192.00 (however on the upside thanks to the big win we are now below owing $200). Must get the tax return lodged and the $1073 back!

The maxi EF (the shares) dropped about $100. The MXI shares which I bought at $0.585 spent a couple of months well below what I bought them for- around $0.45, which I was not thrilled about. On 31st August though they raised up to $0.61 which is a bit of a relief.

The QBE shares which are the bigger portion (think $3200 compared to MXI $600) instead have dropped down! They are currently around $9.97- the average price I have bought them for is $10.70.

The main thing is, even if there is not a profit at the moment, there is no big loss.

***

September is a huge bills month - we are looking at around $1500 in bills which will stretch us. We could pay them but cannot also save our usual 10%, which doesn't thrill me.

I'm thinking I'd rather we pay half this month, half next month as we have no bills really in October. Then in November we start paying the monthly averaged amount of $4011. Much less stressful that way.

Remember how I wrote about something going wrong with the Internet and not having wifi a couple of weeks ago?

Well I was in the middle of doing some budgeting and had a look at the September 2015 budget and our internet (iPad) bill was $200 higher exactly one year ago due to the wifi dropping out!!!

It shouldn't be this year as we realised in time but am I the only one who thinks that there is a bit of a conspiracy going on here or what???

Does anyone else know of things like this happening?

It's been a pretty quiet day too, not too much to report.

My to-do list today was:
- walk the dog (had to do this early on as it's been rainy today)
- washing (the remaining three loads)
- vacuuming (I spent an hour vacuuming floors and places where spiders may hide and vacuuming and wiping the window sills in the front half of the house)
- grocery shopping (not good value for money today, the only things on special were fruit, muesli bars and gravy; we spent $129 as well as $11 for some hotdogs for B's poker night next week)
- cooking biscuits and soup and pasta for lunch (made the choc chip cookies which turned out ok, about to do soup for dinner; think I'll do the pasta for lunch tomorrow night)

I also added the study unit negative amount to my sidebar to remind me to get to work with preparing B's tax return so I can get my refund and reimburse the EF.

That's about all, think it will be an early night tonight!

I haven't really bothered with to-do lists lately but the other night I was watching a tv show where they had a to-do list and thought I may reincorporate that into my weekend (weekdays are a bit harder for me).

Today's to-do list was:

- Body Balance class (I did this and this class is always so great, it's a combination of pilates and yoga with meditation at the end; I always come out with a smile on my face)
- Washing (we are set to get rain for the next week, have already had a large amount yesterday so this task was completed early on in the day so hopefully things dry in time)
- Folding clothes (got last week's washing folded, nothing sitting around in baskets for once)
- Cleaning (spent 45 minutes cleaning bathrooms, tidying up through the house and dusting. It's a necessary evil!)
- Organising the desk in the study (it's been pretty abominable so last night I bought two in-trays after work, one for filing and one for things to deal with; organising and throwing out documents no longer required took 45 minutes; the desk looks oh so much better!!! It's organised and I am so glad I accomplished this task)

All in all, it's been a pretty good Saturday, I feel like I've been productive. I wanted to go somewhere tomorrow and do something cheap and fun, maybe a drive and have lunch somewhere not too flashy but B has come down with the flu so that is out the window.

I bought an iTunes card for us to watch movies and decided I wanted to buy a CD for my phone so I guess this is my fun thing for the weekend! And baking and cooking various things tomorrow!

Well, must go cook our dinner - indian butter chicken and rice with garlic naan bread .

Challenge starting balance: $6,436.17
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- balance transfer CC payment $110.25
- mortgage principal payment $16.00
Challenge closing balance: $6,598.11

Today true to my word I woke up 15 minutes earlier. It's amazing how tired I am with the 15 minute difference, it means a lot I guess! Should be used to it soon. I have to go to bed soon also, which is the other thing I need to get used to.

I used that time to pay the bills, B's speeding fine ($190)(ugh) and his driver licence renewal ($267).

Yesterday morning when I got up early I ordered my textbook ($140.94). My credit card is now just below $2000 which was nearly giving me an ulcer so I transferred the full cost of the study unit and textbook ($1445.94) from the EF. I did not spend 1 year 1 month (so far, next month is the final month) repaying credit card debt to become lackadaisical about large amounts sitting on the credit card, don't want to end up back in that hole! No way no how.

Seeing the cash balance in the EF after doing the transfer is now giving me an ulcer though, so need to get B's tax return sorted asap so we can lodge and I can get the $1073 refund to put straight back in the EF.

After work I went to the shops to get some food for dinner but also decided to do CB's 10 items idea. For $34.54 I got ravioli for dinner, liquid hand soap, toothpaste, meat for the dog, bread, peanut butter, potato chips, coffee pods, almond milk, mini chocolate bars and garlic bread. Ok, I got eleven things. We are running really low on food at the moment so need to build the pantry up a bit!

Goodnight all!

Yesterday I woke up half an hour early to start adjusting my body clock to the new sleep schedule. Although I got my usual 7 hours sleep I was still pretty tired throughout the day but I noticed the most tired I felt was the first and the last 15 minutes of the day.

My plan is to spend three days waking up half an hour early, then three days 45 minutes earlier and then the last four days an hour earlier. My body should be in a routine then.

When I've been waking up earlier I've been doing things instead of just sitting there slowly waking up. Yesterday I put a load of laundry on, today I had to make my lunch because it got too late last night and I needed to be in bed by a certain time. Tomorrow I'm actually going to start going on the computer before work to get into that habit, of getting my mind to work in the study sense. Tomorrow I will be buying the required books for the unit, then on other days I will get B's tax stuff ready for his tax return so we can get our money back.

The other thing I've been doing to form my new study habits is reading something on the train in the morning which is not Facebook or blogs etc. This week I'm doing it in the commute only, next week I will also be doing it on the way home too.

This change of habits has definitely kept me busy!

***

Financial goings on is over the past two days my only spending was $28.50 for the balance of our groceries, $99 for the week. We will need to buy something for dinner on Thursday night when our spending money gets deposited though.

Saturday I got my hair done then went out with my mother to have afternoon tea with my sister for her birthday, which was a really nice outing.

We actually got some good weather on the weekend and our garden has been much in need of some attention so yesterday we mowed lawns, weeded, cut back some overgrown bushes and hosed down pavers and decking in the pergola area. It looks so nice now.

I did a bit of grocery shopping, spent $70.86. That's not all of the food we need to get, but I'll get things as we need them.

We then had a hot tub to enjoy our nicely cleaned up yard .

***

Yesterday was also the closing date for enrolment for another study unit in my accounting degree. After a few discussions with B, my mother and a bit of thought, I decided to enrol. It is a good opportunity doing something I like where I can realise my potential and also earn a good salary.

My job is interesting but part time studying as well as full time work becomes a 60 hour week, so work/life balance becomes really important, and studying on the weekend was not working for us (meaning quality time with B, and general upkeep of the house, not to mention my stress levels).

But then I used an app to track my time and realised if I can get up an hour earlier and use my 30 minute train commute each way that is 2 hours per day studying, and I like that idea better because this is happening in my work week instead of encroaching on my weekend which I don't think will work long term.

Last night I went to bed half an hour earlier so was able to get up half an hour earlier without any problems and pretty much felt fine today, just a little tired. Hopefully forming new habits makes part time studying a bit easier to maintain .

The unit cost was $1305, need to do my tax return now to get the $1073 refund to put towards it. I paid on my credit card so that needs to be sorted out soon.

They said 3-5 days for the $100 phone bond refund to be received and it came through yesterday which is really great. I promptly transferred it back against the holiday fund, so we now owe back $259 there. Getting there slowly.

After work we went to the camping store where B got vouchers for his birthday and got a camping toilet, had to pay $40 out of pocket.

Then we got my sisters birthday present ($18) and some groceries ($6.30) and some wine for me ($19).

After that we went home and had a quiet evening. Remember how wifi got turned off and I resolved not to turn it back on? Well I had a bad moment, was desperate and tried to turn it back on! It didn't work, appears something is not working so I am still on minimal Internet. Maybe it's not the worst thing after all?

Challenge starting balance: $6,329.46
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $71.00
Challenge closing balance: $6,436.17

My football team had a much bigger win than anticipated! Some creative accounting was involved because I am getting my hair done tomorrow and $71 was a bit hard to swing. In the monthly budget I put that we would put $40 towards the holiday fund so included that in the $71 and put $31 over from our spending money.

Now that B's car loan is reduced and we are paying $180 per month it is time to watch closely what he is spending. We put $80 on it per week to cover car washes of the company car and takeaway but he spent $116 so I transferred $36 from our spending money over. I also repaid my $38.50 bag and $13 being the final part of the coffee machine.

Work was much better yesterday. Random emails and phone calls had me looking into things I don't normally deal with, it was quite an enjoyable day. Finished the day off with a good workout at the gym .

Yesterday was a quiet day on all counts. Work is super slow at the moment in my area - not a lot coming in and my boss is on holidays so not much coming in from him either. I had to string work out and look busy. I wonder if that means that once it starts coming in there's going to be a deluge? Time will tell.

No money was spent anywhere so it was a no spend day.

B got a birthday card at his new job that everyone signed so he was very happy with that.

Then we went to bed at 9.30 and had an early night, which is always good. I may have spent an hour gaming on my iPad but I still got an early night .

Quiet days are never a bad thing as long as there aren't too many of them!

Last month when I deactivated the global roaming on my phone I was told I had to wait until after the 7th August to request the $100 bond refund. Annoying but anyway, yesterday I spoke with it and requested it. They put the claim through and said it would take 3-5 business days.

***

Was still considering study so decided to prepare my tax return for the year ended 30 June 2016 to see if I would get a refund to put towards it. The unit would cost $1445 including books and I will be receiving a tax refund of $1072 once I lodge it. I need to prepare B's tax return too and have no idea what the outcome of that will be as he closed the business down 3/4 of the way through the tax year and got a job. We'll see.

As for studying - the financial side is sorted but it is a gruelling schedule with full time work so it's highly likely that that I'm going to pass on it. It's a hard choice - to study to get qualified will mean I'm not working at a fraction of my potential once qualified however working at my current level (bookkeeping) means I'm not living a fraction of my life! While studying I can't do the things I love- spending quality time with my husband, family and friends; camping and travel. That's the toll of 60 hour weeks and I'm not sure I want to do that for years on end. Enrolments close on the 14th so I have until then to decide.

Part of the reason why August is so spendy is because it's B's birthday. His birthday was not a special year so we didn't throw a huge party this time, but we still did lots.

He went motorbike riding with family at one of his country friend's houses which is on 20 acres of land. Fuel for the bike was $18 and he spent $15 on a bbq lunch (he also bought breakfast on the way though).

Then on Sunday we went out to lunch with all of his family, which was a nice day. $32 for a cake, $54 for lunch for us two and $35 for drinks. I actually had $80 for drinks in cash but won $45 on the poker machines so that offset the spending!

Then yesterday, Monday was the actual birthday. I bought B a box of chocolates and a nice card. I got his birthday present a few weeks ago so didn't need to get anything else. Last night we went out for dinner on a double date and his friend was joking to the waitress and asked if B got a free drink because it was his birthday and she replied "no he gets a free meal!". We totally didn't see that coming!

The restaurant was a bit pricey so even with B's free meal and 10% discount, it was still $65. It was a lovely night though.

***

I've had on my wish list a while a new work bag. My work bag is so old the material on a lot of parts is completely worn. So every now and then I check Myer's website to see if they have a sale. They have the best quality bags here, they last for years.

Well yesterday they did! They had 30% of all bags. Normally I go for black or darker colours but there was nothing below $129. They had a nice caramel coloured bag for $109 (not my usual colours I choose, but I just thought it was a great bag). I got to the checkout and when the lady swiped it the price went down to $55 and then I got 30% off!!! Total price: $38.50!!!! I was doing a happy dance.

***

Thank you everyone for your well wishes, my neck has pretty much healed up now. I haven't had to put any ice gel on today, which is good.

Now I just need to repay the $122 in chiropractor fees, the $38.50 bag and $40 in miscellaneous charges by the end of the month if I want to reach my goal of having nothing owing on my credit card by the end of the next month.

I can do it, I just need to curb the spending! Wish me luck guys. I am practising restraint now.

I found a time-tracking app that gives certain categories of activities and allows you to track the amount of time spent on them and then gives you a pie chart along with percentages for the day. I've been receiving emails from my online university about a study unit coming up and was thinking can I do it? It was so hard last time, can I change something so I can endure the next five years (because that it is what is left).

The upshot of that is: no, not really. I will always be on a tight rope waiting for the house of cards to fall whenever I get sick, or something happens. Quality of life will suck majorly. That is what happened and why I gave it up. I like balance and spending half my free time learning this that and the other plus writing academic essays (very difficult for me) means that all other areas of my life go to complete disarray. Not doing it.

Have had a stressful week thinking about it all but back in February when I made the decision not to continue I did it for a reason. It's been fun tracking my time this week though and looking at how can I be more productive?

So last night I was relaxing in front of the tv with my husband, ok he was watching tv and I was spending quality time on the ipad and had been for a good hour when I just happened to look at the wifi signal and realised my ipad was not using wifi! Then found the phone wasn't either. Today found B's phone and ipad weren't either.

Last time this happened my ipad incurred an extra $200 in data usage charges and the previous six months of reduced plan savings got wiped because of it.

My phone doesn't have a lot of data and there is three days to go. I check it fairly often and did notice during the week that it went up a bit but didn't register as to way. Had other things on my mind I guess. My ipad says it has used over a quarter of the usage and 22 days is left to go so I can monitor that. I have no idea how long the wifi was off though, we had modem trouble 2 weeks ago and turned it off to restart it so I'm guessing it was then. Hopefully last month's bill isn't too high.

This morning tried reconnecting the wifi and it wasn't working. I remember from last time it is difficult. Then I had another brainstorm... what if I just don't reconnect for a while? Like a long while?

So for the moment that is what I have done. Productivity has shot up heaps. I've been to the gym, spent nearly 3.5 hrs doing housework, have sat down and watched relaxing travel shows with B. My day has opened right up!

Wifi we're on a break and it is great! I'm hoping to do this experiment until the end of the year to enforce some new time management changes. A bit more decluttering, a bit more life enjoyment instead of constantly flicking between life and the internet - ie spending concentrated time on specific tasks whether they be work or play. I don't need to google every single question that pops into my head (this is a habit of mine). Wish me luck guys!

Spent the weekend spending quality time with B plus we visited both our families. By the time it was Sunday night and I had just enough time to hang all the washing out all I felt like doing was my nails! Glad I did, they look so nice.

But after work I had to spend a good couple of hours cleaning up and various chores. Our weather is more rainy than not at the moment so quite often have to use the dryer. Not last night .

I managed to fit most things on the clothesline and put all our socks etc on the clothes horse. My frugal contribution for the day .

On the financial side of things it was a pretty quiet day. I gave B $20 for his poker game with his friends (at $5 per week they all have a lot of fun) and I spent $10 on a really good hair mask for me. I tend to buy the cheapest shampoo and conditioner I can get usually so why not splurge occasionally? I can't wait to wash my hair tonight and do the mask treatment .

Challenge starting balance: $5,146.49
Plus:
- weekly EF savings $35.69
- football winnings $11.00
Challenge closing balance: $5,193.18

Last week the usual weekly EF savings of $35.69 got transferred over on Friday so that got added to the challenge balance.

As I am now not saving every spare dollar towards the holiday I am doing the same football challenge as last year. For every point my team (St Kilda) win by, a dollar will get added to the challenge and will go towards the holiday fund.

So last week my team won by 11. Then over the weekend they won again! This time by 36 points. That will be a nice snowflake. They have won 8 games so far this year so on the weekends that they lose I will backdate and add those wins to the challenge.

This brings the holiday fund in negative of $-481 now.

I am trying to post a bit more regularly so I hope to do small updates each day. We'll see how this goes! (And you never know I may finally upload my UK pictures to show you guys!)

Challenge starting balance: $4,932.01
Plus:
- March mortgage interest payment: $214.48
Challenge closing balance: $5,146.49

One of my 2016 goals was to pay no more than $300 per month interest. Looking back at the bank statement I can see that $548.48 interest was charged, leaving $248.48 to pay. Looking back at my March blog entries I can see that we paid $34.00 towards the interest charged. Therefore to match that goal I have transferred $214.48 onto the mortgage.

Also happy to see that I have now clicked over the $5k mark in the challenge .

***

My lovely boss gave me a bonus of $1045 on the last day of work before my holiday. I transferred $102 onto my credit card (the overspent portion), $398 onto my credit card to be allocated against the dog's dental surgery (estimate has now been changed to $900-$1200) and $500 repaid to the holiday fund.

I also repaid $500 from our pay for this month against the holiday fund. Balance now owing is $492.00.

***

I knew I wanted to buy another 99 QBE shares by September (dividend payment time) to even it up to 300 shares. Due to the Brexit happenings our market has dropped and my shares have dropped significantly.

Therefore I have now bought 99 shares at a price of $10.39, total cost of the purchase was $1,048.56. Basically $1045 went into the account and $1048.56 came out, so not bad at all.

My average QBE purchase price is now $10.71, so I am down slightly there. The MXI shares owned are down heaps, hopefully one day they increase value again.

The EF breakdown will now be:
Mini EF: $2,636.28
Maxi EF: $3,584.25
Holiday Fund: $-492.00

All in all, $6,220.53 at this point in time.

***

I have dropped the dog off for her dental surgery and her physical shows that her heart, lungs and temperature are ok. They do blood tests before giving the anaesthesia also to check that everything is ok.

I just got a phone call from the vet that her blood test recorded a low white blood cell count which we need to get looked at in a couple of weeks.

And the happy news that she is ok!

They have said that 7 teeth were taken out, mostly the back ones. My poor baby. Hopefully she recovers well.

They changed the estimate from $900-$1200, so am interested to know what it will be. If she was in pain from the broken teeth then it is completely worth it for her to be pain free.

Challenge starting balance: $4,744.82
Plus:
- Fortnightly balance transfer repayment: $151.50
- Weekly EF savings: $35.69
Challenge closing balance: $4,932.01

Hi everybody, I'm back from the UK trip! Had a really lovely time, it was amazing. Saw so many cool things, had quite a few "wow" moments. It was so lovely to meet SG in Scotland, had a really nice lunch with her and her family and my friend.

I will upload pictures when B is around - I had problems doing it last time, so pictures will come soon.

My friend and her husband were such wonderful hosts, they took me to see so many places and made a really big effort to show me the UK side of life, especially food. I am so grateful to have been able to do this big trip.

They live in the middle of England so we checked out lots of castles, historic buildings and English gardens in their area; they took me to a place near Yorkshire where we stayed in a really nice caravan; we went to London for a couple of days and to Scotland for a couple of days.

Financially I only overspent by $102. They are pretty frugal so we cooked a lot of meals at home and mainly ate out on the weekend and when we were away in London and Scotland. My main expenses were meals when out, gifts and alcohol. I am currently staying sober for the rest of July to make up for it! In Australia we have a charity thing called Dry July, so while I am not entering it officially - I had a few drinks at the start of the month so can't - I am basically doing the same things as the people who enter it (except for raise money). I am now on Day 2.

I was lucky enough to have wifi so was able to speak to B pretty much every day. All the same I was very happy to come home! B said the cat was driving him crazy because she was meowing non stop. As soon as I got home I gave her lots of cuddles and it soon stopped. I guess this is her way of telling me I was gone too long!!

The dog decided that she was a daddy's girl and ignored me for the first night and day - now after feeding her and walking her, I am back in her good books and all is normal again.

Jet lag - all I can say is oh my god!!! Yesterday (my first full day back - I got back into Oz the night before) - I experienced a new level of tiredness I have never had!!! Even my bones ached and I was too tired to sit up. Today I don't feel wonderful but have more energy. All the same, I am going in the spa soon to try and help the aches. I guess if you sit mostly still for 27 hours you can expect a touch of pain.

It was still worth it though

***

While I haven't been posting or commenting on the blogs, whenever I've had a chance I've lurked and even on holidays my mind was never truly off financial stuff.

I didn't track expenses for the entire month of June, simply set automatic transfers weekly for our spending money and B's credit card, and fortnightly transfers for my balance transfer repayment. I decided I liked having our spending money and B's credit card payment get deposited every Thursday so simply changed the weekly spending amount from $300 to $500 (being for both of us), and left B's credit card payment at $80 per week. I can simply look at the monthly budget and if something needs to be changed it is very easy.

Being halfway through the year I looked at my 2016 goals and realised that while I have saved just over $2000 into the EF, I have only realistically paid no more than $300 per month mortgage interest for the first two months of the year so need to work on that goal.

As a result I have adjusted the weekly EF savings from $71.02 down to $35.69 (being $3000 - $2072.10 / 26 weeks), and will be working more on the mortgage interest - will write more about that next week.

***

Back in March I took the dog to the vet for a checkup and they reported that she has two broken teeth and needs her teeth cleaned, with an estimated cost of $900-$1100. It never left my mind that I needed to get this done and as I have a day off work tomorrow (I don't start back until next week); I have booked her in to get the work done. As she is 13, I really really hope she will be ok. Cross your fingers for her.

Challenge starting balance: $4,378.78
Plus:
- Monthly balance transfer repayment: $303.00
- Mortgage repayment: $63.00
Challenge closing balance: $4,744.82

Realistically this will probably be my only blog post for June. I would love to write more often but it's crucial that I keep an eye on my energy levels when I'm this busy. I need to not forget stuff and I need to not get sick, so while I need to keep a close eye on the to-do list I also need to be strict with rest. Maybe I'll write some during this week, we'll see how we go.

In May we overspent by $416 which came out of the savings in the mortgage account. Because of all of the outflow I decided that just for one month I would stop the EF savings and sweep that money into the mortgage savings we dipped into instead.

So for June the only savings/debt repayment we'll be doing is $303 for the balance transfer and $63 for the mortgage. The balance transfer will be $917 and the mortgage will be $120,999!!!

I took a day off on Friday as work was quiet and I got to thinking about if B does do something on the walk-in robe he was planning and that I should probably do a major declutter of my clothes and things. I threw out 2/3 of my wardrobe!!! 1/3 was just old and worn to an inch of it's life so I threw that out and the other 1/3 will go to charity. These are generally wrong size clothes that did not get worn much so are in good condition.

There is a door at the other end of the wardrobe which goes through to another room so if B does anything while I'm gone it will only be sealing it up and plastering over it.

Thankfully the GBP has gone up! I transferred my last lot over to the travel money card and looked up the rate and to buy on the card it is about 0.475, which is better than 0.46. I was really worried it would drop even further but luckily it's gone up instead. Tomorrow I will buy so there is 750GBP and then will buy cash so there is 300GBP cash.

Financial transactions for today:

- Bought a Aus/UK electrical adaptor so I can charge phone, straightener etc $11.50
- Transferred $495 to the travel money card account so I can get 232GBP (currently 518 there)
- Paid $72 on my credit card- groceries were $89 and we had $72 cash. I have been eating down all of my food (me & B have different workday breakfasts, lunches & snacks) and have barely had to buy anything for me. Had to buy almond milk, apples and a chocolate bar! The rest of B's food and our dinner food, animal food and cleaning supplies. I was craving sushi last week and decided that instead of buying more lunch food I would eat mine down and buy sushi for lunch 2 days this week - we would have to spend this money anyway. Looking forward to sushi tomorrow!
- Had to pay my phone company $30, was not happy about this! They told me to pay $100 bond to activate global roaming which I did; as soon as the money hit the account they issued me with my monthly invoice which is not due until the 18th and promptly deducted the $30. Grrr. Had to quickly transfer in business hours so they can get it asap and activate it before I go.

Financial transactions done with, very much looking forward to visiting the land of the castles, cottages, cobblestoned streets and of course Scottish Girl!

I've spent time working out the June budget so that we will be ok and worked out the holiday spending. It's not that pretty but it is what it is.

Final repayment of flights (1/3): 252
+ other travel items purchased on CC: 458
+ final instalment of spending money: 721

= 1431
- 803 savings transferred in from holiday fund
------
$ 628
====

The holiday fund is now sitting at $1537 to be repaid back once I am back from holidays. It feels like a lot but I did only book this holiday three months ago, and to go to Europe from Australia is a pretty expensive thing - our UK friends who come over save for a couple of years to be able to do this, so I have kept this in perspective. It will be fine.

The Mini EF is way higher than the usual $2500 cash amount I wanted to leave available so when more of the holiday fund is repaid I could definitely buy more shares.

The Maxi EF (the shares) last night was at $2,999.16! We have a $3000 share portfolio! (ok it has dipped down a bit today). Small victories

Tomorrow I will be clearing the credit card and have just transferred the $803 over, and will be transferring some money to the travel money card. There is 518GBP there, I would like to have 750GBP by the time I go (and 300GBP cash). It will work out to 50GBP spending money per day, hopefully this is doable and I don't overspend too much.

***

In other news B and I have been watching House Rules (Australian renovation competition show) and they had a nice walk-in closet and B has decided he wants to change ours to look like it! He might do a bit of work while I'm gone on it.

It's been a very busy week and part of this has been organising a visit to see Scottish Girl when on holidays soon! Very excited.

My friend I am staying with hasn't been to Scotland in years so she was more than happy to come too, so we will get on a train to go there, meet SG, stay at a hotel and do some exploring. My friend lives in the middle of England so going to Scotland takes a while but is not a massive trek.

We have booked the train tickets and hotel so it is now locked in. It's really funny how this fits into the trip - it is basically 2-3 days before I fly back to Oz so I guess I am preparing myself for long travel. We go to Scotland, come back the next day, then go out to a garden concert which is all day Saturday and then on the Sunday evening I fly home.

I've organised my phone to get put on global roaming and paid the $100 (refundable) bond. I will then be able to text back to B in Oz with no problem, and whoever else I need to text. It's a text only plan, calls are not allowed but that does not bother me, it's fine.

***

Tracking is already starting to be hard. I can see the whole of June being wiped out because my focus will not be on finances. However, as on all holidays I take, while the focus is not on tracking finances, it is on keeping costs down.

B does not handle the money at all and was worried about it because it is new to him so I have tried to set up various automatic transfers so all he will have to do is check the bank account once a week and pay a bill if needed.

I have set up $300 to get transferred from our account to the checking account so he will have cash for groceries and whatever else, $80 onto his CC for his work expenses, $151.50 fortnightly onto my balance transfer CC, and $936 once a month to go into the account his car lease gets paid out of (cannot wait to refinance that in August! the loan we are looking at is around $300 cheaper).

Tomorrow I will do the June monthly budget just to ensure everything will be ok and tweak whatever is needed. And also transfer my final batch of holiday savings to the travel money card and a portion cash; and clear my CC down to $0 before the trip.

So many things to remember, hope I get everything! B is very helpful though, he is always thinking of stuff too.

***

Work is still quiet, but they dropped hints that they were cranky and I dropped hints that I only have two small jobs left but don't want to whinge or bother anyone. They have let me be and I have tried to string my work out as long as possible until more regular work starts flowing back in.

I finished my last job today and my boss gave me another one so at this stage have not had to take extra leave.

On my last day we are going out with work associates (the auditors who audit our accounting work) to a very swanky restaurant. I got a brand new top I can wear but my black jacket is looking pretty old and the fabric is on it's way out, so I am in the market for a new jacket.

My black work jacket I wear three days a work so no matter what the cost is after six months it's time for a replacement. The range I see at the moment goes from Target at $35 to $70 Tokito at Myer to $100 Basque from Myer... As I am going on a huge holiday I'm inclined to buy the Target jacket, but I'll try on all three and see how I go.

Whew! Hope you're all well.

I wish today's post was uplifting but have had a bad day, and am so not in an uplifting frame of mind. Work has really quietened down, which stresses my boss out and then it filters down my way.

I wish I was more understanding but I tend to get annoyed and just withdraw instead. Ie it's not my fault, I am sorry that in the quiet period I am simply a costly overhead while in the busy period because I have been here a long time and know what I am doing, I do my work as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible and you make a fair bit of profit from it. I don't say this of course, but these are my thoughts.

I have 13 business days until my trip and if the days are like today I don't know how I will cope. I'd actually be happy to work part-time in the quiet period (which could very well be July-December), and may offer this. I wouldn't mind a bit of a change of scenery anyway. Seriously though if the work dies off I am going to offer unpaid leave. Financially not the greatest move but sanity would thank me.

I realised I finish on the Friday, have Saturday off and then go on Sunday morning, so would be happy with a little more preparation time.

Thank you all for listening to me. I feel a little bit better already.

***

On another note, the GBP is getting slammed! I bought some money a couple of weeks ago for 0.4827 on my travel money card and 0.4965 cash; on Monday I bought more on the travel money card and it was 0.46! All of these problems with the EU stuff in the UK, I take it.

***

Financial transactions for today:

*repaid $71.69 on my credit card for groceries purchased on Sunday. We had a big weekend so overspent - this week is the last week of the month and we have $452 left for food, petrol, and other miscellaneous items. Tough but doable as long as we stick to what we have left and try hard not to overspend.
*bought a groupon to go on the Churnet railway in the UK. Apparently it passes through a place called "Little Switzerland" and it looks really pretty. I got us a family daypass for $38.16AUD / 18GBP.

That's all folks, hoping for a better tomorrow!

Challenge starting balance: $4,040.78
Plus:
- 2 week's EF: $142.04
- 2 weeks balance transfer repayment: $151.50
- Mortgage repayment: $44.50
Challenge closing balance: $4,378.82

A while ago we replaced the batteries in the keyboard and it seemed to work fine until it died last night. We only replaced them last month so came to the conclusion that it was the keyboard that was the problem, not the batteries.

So today on my lunchbreak I got us a keyboard & mouse combo (upon B's request). I ended up buying a middle of the range Hewlett Packard set for $48, with the flat keys I've become accustomed to from work and really love now. Typing is a dream! Our previous keyboard was top of the range Logitech with buttons to instantly do this and that - go to the internet, open up a calculator etc. We never even used that stuff and they were priced at $100 which I felt was far too pricey. Feeling much better about $48 than $100.

***

Then got home tonight and B set it up for us, it is all working fine and have just now been able to do my favourite thing of the fortnight - money transfers. (This time it was my pay we received)

Logged into the EF and transferred $290 over as half holiday savings. The EF is now around $6k, so nice that this is the new normal. (Don't want to say anymore and jinx it). I actually received $10 Safeway everyday rewards last week and paid it against the amount owed from the holiday fund.

I am currently not fussed about repaying it back yet, will be fully into repaying this after the trip. I then transferred $360 to the travel money card account and also some to cash to buy GBP from the money exchange.

Paid $151.50 towards the balance transfer card - it would now be $1,068.50 - can't believe it was around $4250 back in July last year! Very happy about the progress.

Paid $44.50 against mortgage interest - our loan balance is now $121,498 - next month it will be $120,999!!! That is very exciting to be down into the next lot of numbers.

***

Other than that I have been recovering from my cold, it was actually pretty bad - I was sick for 6 days before I started feeling better. The last couple of months have been so hectic, especially the last couple of weeks with the major deadline I am now focusing on rebalancing. Less rush, more relaxation. I have not caught the early train one day this week and have been leaving pretty much on time. Went to the gym last night for the first time in a while. I'm just trying to get back to my more relaxed self.

Other news is B has been going well at his job and in one of their meetings today they were talking about employees who were doing well (the senior managers were speaking) and his name was one of the names mentioned which is great news. (They were talking about employees who looked likely to receive a bonus). Really nice to see that he's doing well and making a good impression

I hardly ever take sick days. It usually comes down to the threshold - can you take something and get through it? If so, go to work. You never know when you might need those sick days. I haven't taken a sick day since 2011, when I was really sick and took four in a row.

Now I actually am sick but can't take the days because it is the busiest week of the year! Is that bad luck or what? Our major deadline is next Monday, I'll probably be better by the time the deadline is over. Grrr.

We visited both families on Mother's Day and SIL was sick with a cold. I woke up feeling funny on Tuesday and by 10am I knew I had a cold. I've had chills for Tuesday and Wednesday along with being lethargic, and today I am on the sore throat stage. So not looking forward to waking up tomorrow because it's probably going to be really painful by then (if past history is anything to go by).

I made a big batch of chicken noodle soup - nothing fancy, this recipe only took half an hour to make - and have been having it every day. Will have it for lunch tomorrow too. I have been living off Lemsip Max (it has added paracetemol and other things in it to ease the cold's symptoms) and eucalyptus soothers - eucalyptus is all I can taste.

Getting sick is not cheap - around $10 to make the chicken noodle soup; $3 for a 3 pack of soothers; $13 for Lemsip Max. But seriously I could not have made it through deadline time without all this stuff - at work I am pretty much functioning normally! (At home not so much!)

Looking forward to being healthy again, hope you're all well!

Happy mother's day to all you wonderful mothers!

Today we visited both of our mothers, was lovely to see everyone; fun times were had and I even got a present even though I'm not a mum

It was a late birthday present from my brother - a bottle of perfume he got for free for buying my mum's present. It may have been a freebie but it was still very much appreciated!

***

I managed to reset my travel money card password the next day and got into the account, and transferred $730 on Friday, apparently it takes one business day to reach the account. Looking forward to seeing it there and buying my first lot of GBP. Will be buying travel insurance tomorrow night and I also want to buy a pair of compression socks for flying ($12) tomorrow night too.

***

I input all of our bills and income into our budgeting spreadsheet and realised we're on a five week month so we are living off $420pw instead of the usual $500. Challenging but we will do it.

Shopping this week I am happy to say was $130 as planned and we even get steak twice in a week - a definite luxury! Lately it's either really cheap or really expensive, there doesn't seem to be an inbetween.. I got pieces for $7.22 & $8- they can go up to $13 which is too pricey I think.

I saw Eddie the Eagle yesterday using one of my movie vouchers, $9 left there and spent $4.75 on popcorn and chocolates at the supermarket. It was a great movie, funny and very inspiring.

Then I rented a couple of DVDs for $7, Black Mass and Sisters, and had a movie night with B. They were also great movies.

Now the weekend has come to a close, we have $20 left in the bank and $5-$10 cash each, so didn't do too badly. We are sitting in a mostly dark house, watching tv in our comfy lounge room, and are soo relaxed; life is good.