I got my tax refund a couple of weeks ago, which included a $203.00 snowflake(the rest was simply repaying the EF, which has also been done). Add to that a $30 Safeway gift card for my three weeks of spending over $100 per week on groceries a few months ago, another $10 gift voucher for Safeway and a Paypal refund of $15.00 for a top I bought for my spring capsule which wasn't in stock after all. (I didn't see any like that for that price, so decided I couldn't be bothered and claimed it as a snowflake!).

The total amount added to the holiday fund was $258.00, bringing the holiday fund to $518.00. As earlier discussed, the holiday is on the backburner so this will be the last deposit for the year I imagine.

Banking the Difference is now $4,076.54, so that plus $5,300.00 will bring an anticipated year end balance of $9,376.54. In a way better place than this time last year!!!

I paid the balance of the $303.00 monthly balance transfer payment, that card is now at $3,034.00. There is still a balance of around $30.00 on the original credit card. One day I'll clear it out completely!

I also repaid the last of the New Zealand expenses on the original credit card (which I use as a transaction card).

Have barely been spending, have been spending lots of time studying for my degree unit which is near its end, and my body is at its end of its tether also. Battling sinus and a toothache and possible ear infection - but really I think it's all sinus-related. Tired and achy is not a great thing. At least the financial house looks a bit more orderly! (Other than that life here is not too bad, husband and animals are well).

Things are slowly getting back to normal here. After nearly two weeks of work off, this week I had a massively busy week at work. I now feel like I'm getting back to what I considered normal in terms of my workload, five days on.

On Friday night I went to visit one of my friends who is also going on the Thailand trip. Hadn't seen her in a while so I thought a catchup would be good.

When I asked her if she'd heard anything about when we're going she told me that one of our other friends who is also going has just found out she has ovarian cancer. It's too early to know what stage it is, but I'm praying it's an early stage and she can be operated on, have chemo? and go into remission. Praying for her.

She hasn't said anything because she's still processing it, she has three girls under 10, so you can imagine how scared she would be.

The Thailand deal is open for two years so it doesn't matter if we go later. Her health is the first priority, so we will see what happens with her first, then make plans. I'm still going to put some money aside here and there so whenever we decide to go it won't be very difficult to come up with the balance.

Meal plan for today:
Breakfast: poached eggs on toast
Lunch: sandwich or sushi (TBA)
Dinner: homemade pizza and garlic bread

Hi everyone. I've been lurking on the blogs here & there, but have had too much going on to be able to post.

Last week B & I went on our camping holiday as planned. We cooked breakfast and dinner camping style and ate out every day. We went bike riding, to a winery, also to a brewery, to a national park, we did so much stuff. Because I really wanted to be able to put some money towards Phuket payment of balance of trip, I actually tracked all expenses while on holiday. I never do this normally but it was important know how we were going. By the end of October there was $260.00 left over, so have put it towards the holiday (as part of the banking the difference challenge).

We also spent the weekend visiting friends too. Then I got home on Sunday and mum called me up to let me know that nana had gone into renal failure, and if we wanted to say goodbye it needs to be done asap. All our family other than immediate family is in New Zealand. Nana was 86 and has had diabetes for many years. Last year she got sick with giant cell arteritis and never really recovered.

I love my nana very much so decided I had to go see her. Unfortunately my mother has just become so unfamily oriented. I saw nana last year when she was sick and had to beg her to go and see her. It was like pulling teeth. Then they had a great time and it was really happy. When she called me she said there's no point going as she won't know what was going on and she wasn't going because she already had happy memories.

I thought about and decided to go anyway. I wasn't really hearing back from anyone and didn't want to impose, so booked a hotel room instead of staying with relatives. My aunt told me off because she made up the bed as she thought I was coming, I wish I did stay there. The hotel room was nice though. I was in New Zealand from Wednesday through to last night, the entire cost (flights, accommodation, food) was $1400. Ouch. I only have $140 left for the month after accounting for bills and some savings, so it will be a quiet month.

The most important thing though is I got to see my nana and say goodbye to her. As soon as I got there l told her thank you for holding on for me and she started to move to hug me (I then had to hug her as she was far too weak). I got to tell her I love her, and chatted to her about many things, and we all reminisced of happy memories of her life. It was a lovely day and I now feel like I got closure. I will miss her.

She stayed alive until my cousin arrived from Australia yesterday morning and then died about 20 minutes later, she had declined rapidly by then. The funeral is next Tuesday. I wish I could be there but can't, I got to say goodbye that's the most important thing. RIP nana, love her so much.

Life is pretty quiet here at the moment. Not that it's a bad thing. I'm super busy with studies outside of work so don't have a lot of time to do much else. No spend days are currently the norm, unfortunately though when I do spend I'm buying four different things (eg groceries & get the car washed- I was time strapped so chose to spend the money) so that means a large outflow in one day instead of many small transactions.

So far I'm at 72% spent, though I have already accounted for 15% savings/debt repayment in the amount spent. I like the idea of paying yourself first then living off the balance.

We go away camping in the near future, very much looking forward to it! So far we have planned to cook breakfast and dinner meals at the caravan park and eat out each day, so that not only will we enjoy campfire cooking but we are also not spending too much either

Ceejay inspired me with her capsule wardrobe so as we are at the start of spring I researched spring capsule wardrobes, decided on one I felt was appropriate to me and got as many clothing pieces together as possible and evaluated what I would need to purchase.

Luckily most of my clothing is in good condition and I bought some summery tops before we went away in March and have barely worn them because the season then changed.

I have two pairs of jeans, Capri cargo 3/4 pants, shorts and a denim skirt for bottoms. I have five different cardigans- some long sleeves, some short. I have two tshirts and three tank tops, and four going out tops. I also have two going out jackets and three dresses, a pair of flip flops, a pair of sneakers, some dressy flip flops, and two or three pairs of going out shoes. Oh, and three long sleeve tshirts.
And because I tend to stick to black, white and beige (too much of these), with some denim, some coral pinks and some navy, everything matches.

So according to the capsule contents, I need a long sleeve shirt! That is all for the next three months!!

I found one for $38. I also want to get a short sleeve tshirt and a going out top. Hoping to spend $100 for all three.

Next will be a capsule for work clothes because they say to separate the two. Aiming to complete my casual spring clothes capsule by the middle of the month then will look at work clothes in the last couple of weeks in October.

So glad I thought of the holiday fund earlier this year, it has become so useful! Was not even thinking about overseas holidays at the moment but then yesterday a good friend of mine (whose wedding we went to in March) invited us to go with them and a bunch of friends to Phuket, Thailand next year! She found a deal of $800pp for 7 nights accommodation, airfares and breakfasts. We have not planned dates to go as yet but once we buy the package they are valid for two years - we imagine we will be going next year sometime. So excited - did not consider going to Thailand but many people have said how beautiful it is, and it looks gorgeous. Luckily B agreed to go! So there was $207.00 in the mini-holiday and deposits to lock in the deal were $150.00pp, so I transferred out the $207.00 from mini-holiday fund and $93.00 from our bank account.

Must do the tax return and get the EF back to what it should be.... So bad with procrastinating on this one...

I worked out to get 15% savings I would need to save an extra $188.

$58 of that had to go towards the Balance Transfer payment of $303.00. I transferred over the payment tonight and the balance in a couple of days on that card should read $3,644.00 - which is awesome. The balance on the actual CC1 is around $68 now, eventually it will be down to $0. No rush there, I just keep on transferring $10 per week.

The remaining $130 saved was part of the mortgage snowflake of $183.00 reduction in our mortgage compared to what the repayment used to be (B covered the rest).

I also transferred our insurance savings towards the two cars tonight as well of $180, there is now $580 saved up.

As it is the end of the month (well close enough) spending will be minimal from now on. I had a long day at work and craved a bottle of wine and gave in - there was $10 spent (had two glasses though, the rest is still there). But there is no weekend plans, so should be very quiet. Will need to be because most of the money is now spent! I am not bothered though because I feel like it is going to useful places.

I will start off with the financial transactions for the week. The 50 week challenge payments for the week have been updated and I have added $110 to the Banking the Difference challenge, which was savings for my credit card for the $303 monthly balance transfer payment.

Like Mrs Frugalista, yesterday I was reflecting on my goals and the progress so far and how likely it is that by 31 December they will be met. I have dipped into the EF a couple of months ago and still owe $130 for that. Have also withdrawn $1283 for my study subject. So while the totals on the sidebar look wonderful, in actual the EF is a bit leaner than that! I need to do my tax asap to get the $1283 back. I'm actually due a bit over $1500 so the $130 will be repaid also. For our situation, it's so important to do this now while we're in high season before we get to low season and the tax refund then has to get used to live off, not repaying the EF. *So* don't want that.

B's card is shocking because he's been getting underpaid again. The sidebar says he has repaid $472.30 and $379.63 for the two challenges, yesterday I checked and he only had $155 available. I have since repaid $225.00 from his earnings tonight, so that he now has $380.00 available (as per Banking the Difference challenge).

So we have a bit of work to do to get back up to speed. *If* things go well, we get back to normal and all our money gets repaid back into the right places, and I continue to pay at least $100 on my credit card on top of the 50 week challenge, and we bank the difference for the mortgage savings of $183.00 per month, we should meet a pretty awesome goal of having saved/repaid $10,000. But as I'm seeing at the moment it will require some careful watching and ensuring the balances are repaid and not used (eg not dipping into the EF or using the credit cards).

But it is so important to not just plan and carry out the plan, but to also occasionally sit back, reflect on where your progress is and decide if any action needs to be taken, as I have just seen.

Finally - have had *the*worst*week* with computers, both at home and work!!! Monday night our computer would start but the monitor would then say "no signal" and go blank, nothing would happen. Then B came home a couple of hours later and tinkered around and 10 minutes later it was working. So glad about that, even if I lost 2 hours before that. Tuesday at work just after 5pm we were winding our day down and all of a sudden the network was lost, the server lost power. My boss got on the phone to IT and reset the server and it was ok. I got home Tuesday night and our toner ran out, and B put new toner in. But something went wrong with it and black wouldn't print. Have left it for now, we will look at it soon. Yesterday our part-timer couldn't get her computer on, they ended up finding out it was a problem with a graphics card and she got a new monitor, everything was working.

But today I got to work and when I turned my computer on, it had the graphics of the brand on the screen, and then it went black. Nothing. IT came and got my computer, worked on it for a couple of hours and brought it back. This time it loaded up to desktop stage but none of the programs would open. Then after we tried opening them an error message came up, and then the whole thing closed down. Our manager then spoke to IT, who said it sounds like the hard drive had died and it needs to be replaced. My boss looked at when it was purchased and would you believe it, it was only 3 months out of warranty!!! Talk about not good value for money!

I spent the day summarising things manually, just like accountants did in the old days, with a notepad and a calculator with a printer ribbon. Luckily I have the day off tomorrow so hopefully something is sorted out while I'm off work.

After all these dramas I am currently backing up our hard drive to an external hard drive we have. It's taking a long time though, so might turn it off and do it tomorrow while I know I'll be on the computer for a couple of hours, have to get some sleep.

Hopefully you all back up your computers! If not, please take the opportunity and do it!

This weekend while grocery shopping I received a $15.00 discount from the supermarket as a reward for shopping there for 4 weeks and spending over $100 each time (the $30 gift card for the first weeks is still due to arrive). Shopping was then reduced down to $100.40. Last week I paid a couple of phone bills and there was a $10 discount on one of them, so sent over $25 back to the EF (the $15 reward, the $10 bill saving). Now the amount owed back to the EF from what we borrowed is $130.00.

It is the 13th and I am now currently at 77% spent. Watching carefully.

I promised Debtfree-by-thirty that when I got around to it I would post up the cost of our destination wedding. I opened up the spreadsheet and it came in at $8615.88. I still think it ended up being around $10000 though, because I was carefully monitoring costs up to departing for the wedding, once we were at our destination there was way too much going on to track finances. Here is the breakdown as follows:

Flight to & from Queensland $651.88
Celebrant $640.00
Photographer $840.00
Wedding rings $734.00
Invitations $115.00 (we bought the material from a scrapbooking store and made them ourselves)
Catering $1200.00
Honeymoon accommodation $848.00
Hire car $452.00
Alcohol $500.00 (I have a feeling we allowed $500.00 but when we got there we may have spent $1000.00 as we bought beer, wines and many premixed spirit drinks)
Spending money $1000.00
Bride's Dress $890.00
Groom's Suit $200.00
Marquee & jukebox $545.00

I haven't included makeup etc, but when we arrived in Queensland I got acrylic nails (French manicure), spray tan, makeup done, hair done - it all could have come to about $500. While we there we put together thank you for attending bags with cards & sugar almonds, that was about $100 (maximum).

We had about 30 people at our wedding (in October 2010) and did not have to pay for a venue as we held the wedding on my sister-in-law's tropical rainforest property.

Hopefully this has been helpful, it was certainly interesting to reflect back over!

Last week I did something exciting and applied for annual leave! This year we are doing more camping things, so we are going away to see friends a few hours away for a weekend and we are also going away camping for four nights for our wedding anniversary to a place called Bright, which is in the mountains and is really beautiful.

The campsite at the caravan park was $45 per night, so $180 in total. I decided to withdraw $100 from the holiday fund (because that's what it's there for) but didn't want to withdraw too much either. Because I've withdrawn $100 from the holiday fund I've reduced the holiday fund and the Banking the Difference challenge on the sidebar accordingly. This way we pay $80 out of pocket for the accommodation, feels much better, less of an outflow. So $207 is left there, might add some here and there to build it up a bit.

Very much looking forward to both holidays

Other things of note:
- no charge for paying the minimum late on the balance transfer card, woohoo!
- the fan belt on the dryer broke. We have had it for 12 years now so B was thinking maybe it's time to replace it. Instead I found a parts kit (there are four or five different parts, and the dryer fan belt is one of those things) for $56 in total off eBay. When it arrives B will fit it. I am so lucky to have such a handy husband!

I received the credit card statement a while ago but didn't check the minimum payment due date. (I know, so not clever.) The credit card statement showed that I paid the $303 from last month and added on the $64 annual card fee. So from the close of the credit card statement to now I have paid $64 against the credit card, to clear the annual card fee.

So all weekend I've been thinking "really must check the due date for payment"... well I did and it's due tomorrow, the 7th! So I've shortpaid by $17 (the minimum payment was $81)! I had a look on their website to see if I will get charged any fees, it doesn't say. I promptly transferred $30 over, so the amount paid will be $94. I am still sticking to $303 per month though, so later on I will pay $273 instead. SO annoyed with myself! Grrr.

Anyway, now I know the due date, don't I...

Also, I forgot to share my thoughts of the Vacation movie, which I saw last week. I thought it was great! A bit gross in some parts, but it is a fun family movie where you will leave with a smile on your face and a warm feeling.

And just quickly (as I have to go to bed soon) food shopping was a respectable $145 for us, so was happy with that. Got the gas bill, which turns out to be $522 (up $17 from this time last year - due to running the heater all winter). The electricity bill is also so high because I use the dryer every weekend during winter. Looking forward to the weather warming up so I can stop using it.

I have accounted for all the bills for the month, with that and spending up to this point of time, am at 71% of the total budget. Will be continuing to try not to spend too much so we don't see a financial haemorrhage.

Here September is wonderful because it is the start of spring and winter is on it's way out (happy dance!!). In our house September is scary because all our expensive bills fall due.

I did the monthly budget just to work out if we could afford to save the $183 mortgage saving to add to the mortgage principal - from August. Turns out we can, and so I did. That was important to me.

We have council rates ($400), an electricity bill of $612 and our telephone company had an outage a while ago and the wifi on my ipad stopped working. Unfortunately I didn't realise until possibly a week or more later. Then opened up the phone bill to find an extra $200 in data usage added on! I was so not happy!

Add to that a more than likely high gas bill which is expected to come in at the end of the month, and I am nervous.

I worked out that we can just afford the bills, necessities and our usual savings, and probably some small luxuries here and there. But as it's scary September, conservative and frugal is the name of the game. The aim is no super high grocery bills this month (I really will try!) and not overly high spending in the other areas.

In terms of the $303 credit card payment to come out in the middle of the month, I now have $72.40.

Lots of little things have been happening this week. B went to a friend's house on the weekend, and his friend's son had a stomach bug. This is of no relevance until B gets a job interview on Tuesday to be a new homes building supervisor.. To explain, B used to work in this job role up until about 8 years ago when he opened up his carpentry business. Now he wants to work in this role again to get out of physical work but it's hard to get considered for because of the 8 year gap.

So he got this interview because he knows someone he used to work with that recommended him. And then got the stomach bug five hours before the interview! He got lots of powerade to help him through it and soldiered on - luckily the interview only went for half an hour. He got a second interview today and unfortunately just missed out- it ended up being between him and one other guy so he did well. I just couldn't believe of all the time to get sick it had to be then!

With me, I have my exam for my study unit on Tuesday so have lots of studying to do on the weekend. I'll get through it. I've been really tired and emotional though, exhaustion set in and I was considering quitting everything and just doing bookkeeping. But then the work I do is interesting and it would be a waste of a good opportunity - I was given the chance to do a job it would normally be hard for me to get into and am lucky. So back to the drawing board it is

Financial things - last night I paid $64 annual fee on the balance transfer card, paid back the EF $50 ($155 left to go now), have saved $21.20 towards the $303 balance transfer payment ($281.80 to go), paid around $60 in interest and credit repayment insurance on B's card. B's interest is creeping up because his income has been so erratic that he hasn't been able to repay all of his work purchases. Looking forward to seeing more of the income he's owed and a bit more stability there. I also saved $180 towards our car insurances - we paid for both in full in March and were planning on saving $180 per month. It's now August and we'd only saved $220, so really is time to resume those savings so we're not in for a big shock next March - $400 there now. All we need to do for August now is save the mortgage repayment difference from last year of $183.

I shopped for three weeks in a row at Safeway to get the $30 gift card and have now completed the requirements. On the final purchase I received a receipt saying that I will be getting a $30 gift card before 16 October, so that will be a nice snowflake. The next deal they have now is giving $10 off coupons for purchases over $100 - I've been given two, planning on using one this weekend.

Looking forward to seeing the movie Vacation tomorrow night and going out for dinner - we didn't spend much last weekend so have a bit extra spending money

Hoping you all have a nice weekend

Yesterday I made the first ever balance transfer payment on the new 0% card. Have done a spreadsheet, kind of like Petunia and Banker Gurl have been doing, hopefully I can work out how to upload it here.
http://www.savingadvice.com/blogs/image.php?blog=5822&id=13587
Interest got charged on my normal credit card (aka CC1) with the amount being $14.72. MUCH better than the usual $53-60 per month! Of course, no interest at all would be even better

I also repaid that interest plus $10 repayment, so CC1 has $115 owing now, and 0% Balance Transfer card has $3947, a total of $4,062. Progress is good.

***

Last week was a low spend week so when I did our weekly spending transfer there was still $70 in the eftpos account, so have paid that against the money owing back to the EF. New amount owed back to EF is $205. This weekend is also quiet, so hoping to throw a little bit more against that.

***

Yesterday I was planning on buying a $20 work shirt, but walked through a department store to get there, and they had a good brand shirt (Cue) marked down from $125 to $37.50. Their shirts are great and longlasting so did not have a problem spending the extra $17.50. It's so funny because last month when I was going to buy the $20 shirt I walked through the store and ended up getting the good quality one really cheap instead! Kind of like fate.

***

Another thing that happened yesterday was Mr Money Mustache posted an article which I saw in my newsfeed which talked about the lifestyle choices he makes - for example never driving except far away. He was talking about people feeling like they "have" to "do" certain things, like drive here, drive there, which means that they're spending extra gas money when really they could walk to a lot of the places they go to. It's all about the mindset. You don't "have" to "do" everything everyone else does.

So my frugal thing today was after walking the dog, I walked to the shopping centre to get the items needed for dinner. I checked my phone when I walked out the door, and then checked when I got to the shopping centre - 10 minutes walking time. Compared to 5 minutes driving time. No petrol used, no fumes created.

Dinner tonight is salmon, brown rice, sweet potato and capsicum (peppers I think you call them) mixed in together.

***

In terms of groceries, I am still doing the deal where you spend a minimum of $100 for three weeks in a row to get a $30 gift voucher. Have done the first two weeks, onto the last week. Last week's groceries ended up being high because I had to buy dishwasher balls and got some extra meat, so am hoping to spend only just over $100 there. Have already spent $15 so far though, so will need to watch the spending to ensure that we don't go too too far over. Don't want to be spending all our money on groceries after all

***

Here the weather is glorious. It's a sunshiny 18 degrees (64 Fahrenheit), so am enjoying it before we get the cool weather change - is supposed to be 13/14 all week (55/57 Fahrenheit)

Another great thing is some of my favourite fruits are coming into season - got 2 big punnets of strawberries for $3 last week, so spent the week eating strawberries for dessert, and preparing strawberry smoothies for breakfast, and learnt about how to get them to keep fresh for longer so was cutting them up the night before, patting them dry and they were fine the next day. Yum. Looking forward to the mangoes going cheap soon too!

Hope you all enjoy your weekend!!

Hi everyone,

I did a big long blog entry which has published but is not showing. If anyone is interested in reading it, please check my page.

Cheers

The party went great! The party was pretty much like a holiday - because we had visitors from interstate and there was so much activity for four days pretty much all I could do was just completely immerse myself in the party and socialising.

As far as milestones go, I think B is pretty happy! All his family and friends were there and everyone had a great time. He gave me a big bunch of flowers when he was doing the speech to say thank you which was so nice.

No problem with the food and the drinks tab came way under at $1277! The bar lady was wonderful because she pointed out the best priced beer and wine and also got us to borrow a club members card (B's uncle is a member of the club we had the function at) so every drink was 10% discounted. The total party cost was $3401, and well worth it. We have many happy memories.

B ended up with enough vouchers to buy this expensive camping fridge he wanted, clothes, some money towards a new motorcycle helmet and got given an Apple TV thingy. All great!

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Now to get back to reality. Because the days before were just like being on holiday and party day was so busy, financially I ended up doing the same things as on holiday. I just transferred the usual weekly spending money and totally did not have the energy to track every dollar spent like usual. We still didn't overspend though which is great. I'm finding I'm so used to paying a low price, looking for a low price that even when I'm totally distracted and time-strapped, the habits are ingrained.

Last night I paid water bill and home phone- there will be around $15 in snowflakes there when we get paid in a couple of days (while we didn't run over, in our spending accounts they are pretty much down to zero). Looking at the bills we have to pay, my cell phone is next and there is a saving of $70 there.

On Monday there was $39 left in our spending account so I transferred $30 to go towards the $303 monthly payment on the balance transfer card (which has all officially happened now). So far there is now $82.60 there, $220.40 to go. In the next week there will be $85 from the snowflakes just mentioned, which will leave $135.40. When I get paid $100 will go there, so it is looking like within 1-2 weeks I can transfer the first $303 payment.

So, the $303 payment looks like it is in order, so next will be putting the $275 back into the EF, and also getting the Banking the Difference challenge restarted! That's exciting for me. The $85 previously discussed will be added to this challenge.

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Another possible snowflake I am working in the supermarket I have a rewards card with, Safeway, currently has a deal where if you spend $100 every week for three weeks in a row (starting 10th August and finishing 30th August), you get a $30 gift card! Have bought our shopping there this week and made the $100 minimum.

A habit I've been falling into lately is overbuying grocery shopping one week and then therefore underbuying the next (eg $200 one week, $80 the next for example). With this challenge I have to be above $100 for three weeks so I am trying to spend just over to ensure that for the three weeks we will make the $100 minimum spend. Groceries this week was $127.

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Hoping you've all been well, talk soon

The lead up to the party is kinda like the lead up to a holiday. Frantically busy to the point of exhaustion but you know that really soon the reason for it all will be upon you and you're going to be having a ball! That's what keeps me going.

My study unit had an assignment due today so I spent all last weekend doing it and mailed it on Monday. Then spent the week organising the photo board for B which was a lot of fun for both of us, going through years of photos and reliving old events.

Catering which was originally $1425 dropped down to $1050, because of people who couldn't come and the fact that they don't charge for kids under 12. The money we saved got spent on balloons ($165- for 10 table packs, a large 40 balloon and they blow them up with helium for you) and photo board stuff ($35). The actual photo board is a canvas you can paint on so B said leave the plastic wrapping on and afterwards I can do a painting for the house. (I have paint and have done a few, nothing truly artistic mind you).

And we are paying the band slightly more (our choice). We plan on giving them an extra $200.

We ended up deciding not to increase the drinks tab because when all is said and done $2000 is a lot of money and this is not a wedding (where drinks are always fully covered).

Now I'm on my way home about to start this crazy long anticipated weekend! Just wanted to say hello to everyone, have been too busy and exhausted to post a blog before now. Can't believe it's now here!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So grateful for heating and hot drinks

Hoping you're all having a lovely weekend

Lots of goings on today!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope you're doing well everyone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, moving on from that.

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

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

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

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