Okay this time for real... I'm back!

I know I keep saying that I’ve fallen off the bandwagon and I keep saying I'll get back on it – but I haven’t. I don’t know where my motivation has gone! I’m not bringing lunch from home as often, I’m not aiming for No Spend Days… in fact the only thing I am doing is tracking my spending! The effects of this are pretty clear – Spending A LOT more and my weigh continues to go up and up as the lack of planning is translating into other parts of my life. I’m not planning exercise either!

Anyway, here’s our end of April Debt Update:
















Wedding Savings end of March: $ 1000.62
Wedding Savings end of April: $ 2,500.62
Still needed to save: $ 20,817.88

I won’t go over my April goal results. Because they’re all rubbish!

But I will set goals for May. They are pretty much the same as the goals I set for April, with some minor changes. You’ll notice that I’m not setting a budget for petrol, and this is because I no longer have to pay for petrol – it’s all going through work now!

In May I will:

Keep our groceries below $400
Repay $800 onto credit cards
Achieve 8 No Spend Days
Attend 8 Exercise classes
Attend 6 Personal Training Sessions
Bring lunch to work 16 times
Eat dinner at home 16 times
Eat a proper breakfast 16 times
Take the dogs for a walk 8 times (twice a week)
Read 2 books (I’ve already borrowed them from the library)
Lose 2kg! (I’ll check my weight tomorrow morning to find my starting point)

I really have to take some control of my weight…hopefully being well organised this month will help me!

Wedding update for those that are interested:
1) The dress from eBay arrived! It’s pretty good; some minor alterations required but it looks like I’ve saved myself about $1500.
2) We have booked a celebrant. She will cost $500, although I budgeted $600 so this is good!
3) We have booked a photographer for $2355. This is bad because I budgeted $1600 but BF decided he wanted all the extra albums and parents albums etc and since it’s his wedding too I thought we might as well do what he wants for a change hehe
4) We have decided to go to Vanuatu and possibly New Zealand for our honeymoon. This means only 6 nights in Vanuatu and then probably 5 nights in New Zealand’s North Island. I don’t know how this will affect our budget yet! But it should work out the same as 10 days in Vanuatu in the 5 star hotels! But overall I have budgeted $8500 for our honeymoon, for all accommodation, flights & spending money. Hopefully that’s enough!

I will try to be a more regular blogger; I don’t think I'll ever achieve any regular readership with the current state of this thing!!

I've been MIA cos I've been SHOPPING!

Where has the last week gone? I've been so busy with Easter and all that jazz, that suddenly, it's Thursday April 16th! I haven't even been tracking my progress altho I can safely say that I shopped out of control like it was going out of fashion... what's with me at the moment?

The good thing is because of the stimulus package that the Australian Rudd government is giving us, we'll be getting a "free" $1800 ($900 each) sometime in the next month which will pay for our expensive Easter and the shopping spree I did on Easter Monday.

Yes I went shopping. Mostly for clothes... Did I need them? Yes... I think I did. I sort of wish I hadn't spent the money but I know it was all stuff that I needed.

I have bought one pair of jeans in over 2 years. They cost me $30. Very cheap jeans. And they are starting to fall apart... I also regularly wear two pairs of black jeans that I bought almost 3 years ago. They're not quite black anymore. One pair has a tear in the leg and the other has a broke zip meaning the fly always comes undone. It's lame... I needed new jeans.

So - when I saw Dotti jeans on sale for $39.95 I bought a cool faded pair. I also bought two singlets for $20 (Three of my existing singlets have holes in them!) and a new cardigan, the same as the one I bought a couple of weeks ago, but in charcoal instead of black. Total spent at Dotti: $89.90 - Not bad for all those things!

I also bought a pair of black jeans from jay jays for $39.95 and a hoodie for $19.95 (Was $29.95 but I got $10 off for buying the jeans) so I spent $59.90 there.

I then went to Big W and bought Mr M 2 pairs of sports bonds jocks, and a 3 pack of normal trunks, bought myself a 7 pack of undies, a new belt (my old one lost the middle bit which you put thru the hole hehe) and some chewing gum. Total: $64 (I think I've forgotten something off that list)

Went to priceline, bought a 3pack of Johnston face wipes (should last me about 6 months!) and a buy-one-get-one-free pack of maybelline mascara (6 months worth), shampoo (haven't bought any for 6 months) and some boy shampoo for Mr M as well. (Stops him from using mine!) Oh I also bought Mr M a new loofah thingy because his old one is falling apart and looking very sick and tired. Total was about $49, I can't remember exactly because I also used my priceline loyalty voucher which was about $5 worth, so I spent $44-ish.

The part that was a bit excessive was my spending at JB Hi Fi. I haven't bought a new CD in AAAAGES and I was planning to just have a browse but I saw that latest Triple J Hottest 100 (compliation CD of top songs from 2008 for those not in the know) and thought I'd grab it... Also bought an EP I've wanted a while (Tame Impala - it was only $7) and then I remembered Mr M complain that his Nevermind CD doesn't work anymore and I saw it for $9.99 so I grabbed that too. All up I spent $39.

So, on that particular day, I spent about $300. That's not a huge amount, and I'm totally happy that I stocked up on those things at priceline and big w, and I love my new clothes... Haven't unwrapped the EP yet but the other two CD's are already on high rotation.

Verdict? Thumbs up. We can afford it, and even if we couldn't then the stimulus package would easily cover it, and I had fun!

What is our Net Worth?

I read regularly on PF blogs about people’s net worth. I’ve always been so focused on how much debt we have, but I’m really trying to motivate myself to be positive about my life, so I thought I’d have a look at what we’re worth. Keep in mind this is entirely based on estimates that I’ve gotten from looking around at what the current asking price for equivalent homes/cars/etc.

ASSETS (estimates):
House: $340,000
My Car: $15,000
His Car: $8,000
His Boat: $4,000
TOTAL: $367,000

DEBTS:
House: $258,655.69
Credit Cards: $24,544.50
Car: $14,198.72
TOTAL: $298398.91

Total Networth: $68,601.09

I supposed I feel good that that figure means we’re worth something…not entire sure how good or bad this figure is. I should roll over all my superannuation into one account so I can track it properly and see how much I have; I’ve been really slack about grouping it together. I wonder if my original super account opened for my 1st job in 1997 is still open… I’m pretty sure I have about $9,000 in one account, and $5,000 in another. Mr M would have at least 30k… I would hope so anyway! He’s been working full time for 7 years!

Weekend Wagon

I always seem to fall off the frugal and fitness wagons when it comes to the weekend.
I had already been struggling during the week because of bad planning (see last post) and I thought the weekend would be better because I would have the time to plan – but no, I was wrong. (This is also my week’s goals update, but I’m trying to do this in a less boring format!)

Frugal failures: We had dinner out on Tuesday night ($60), but also went out for dinner and movie on Friday night ($80 for dinner, not sure about the movie as BF paid for it out of his allowance) and Saturday I went grocery shopping and managed to spend $188 (holy expensive grocery shop batman, revisited!) PLUS $70 on booze. Holy schmoly. I had to put that all on the credit card, until BFs payday, tomorrow. I will pay it straight away, don’t you worry about that! I only managed one NSD this week, which was Monday.

Sunday I went to see my friends flower display, entry to the expo cost me $20 (!) and I also bought a bottle of diet coke ($4.20! WHAT THE? For sugary water?!) But luckily I managed to score free parking. We went out for dinner last night as well, but that was MIL’s shout, for all the hard work Mr M has been doing on her renovations. He’s saved her thousands so she thought she’d spoil us with a nice dinner out!

Fitness failures: Obviously the biggest failures are the fact I’ve eaten out so much this week! Tuesday was a massive chicken burger with chips, for Friday lunch I had a chicken schnitzel roll (OMG what am I, a uni student???) and for dinner was a (beautiful) 300g steak w greens and a massive bowl of chips and two beers and a wine. Thank god I resisted the popcorn at the movie. Sunday night’s dinner out was fantastic, but the duck was fried (bad bad bad) and the wine was flowing (more bad) and the DEEP FRIED ICECREAM was completely unnecessary and evil but geez I enjoyed it. Oh and did you say exercise? NONE all weekend!! I will give myself credit for the cardio session I did on my own on Monday, plus the weights session I did with my personal trainer on Wednesday, PLUS a cardio/boxing session with my trainer on Friday, however, eating crap all weekend and not exercising at all completely undoes all that good work. I also haven’t walked my dogs in over a month. Poor neglected puppies!!!

Looking back at what I’ve written, it’s pretty negative that I’ve called them both “failures”. Maybe next week I can report on achievements?!!?

What can I do better this coming week?
1) Make salads to take to work for lunch again!
2) Book in 2 sessions with my trainer, plus attend one pump class
3) Commit to taking the pups for TWO walks this week
4) Commit to 6 hours of reading time
5) Commit to 2 no spend days
6) Spend quality time with Mr M without spending money
7) Limit TV to 2 hours a night (one show, plus the news)
8) Cut out as much sugar as possible, except for fruit

I may report back on Thursday night or Friday morning, as its Easter Weekend, and set myself some goals for those 4 days, Friday – Monday. Luckily, Mr M couldn’t get out of his work commitments so we’re not going away with his friends like planned , so that should save some money, and mean I might actually see MY friends for a change!!

Taste of the old life

I'm very aware that my posts of late are a bit.. boring. I suppose I'm not really putting any thought into them, I'm just reporting on my spending of late. I think I'll stop posting weekly goals and plans as this is BORING... So this post is a bit more about lessons learnt...

This week, we've had a taste of our old life - the spending-whenever-I-feel-like-it life. It's a lame excuse but we've been unbelieveably busy. It's amazing how expensive a convenient life is.
On Monday I went out for lunch with Mr M, my hubby-to-be, because we hadn't spent much time together on the weekend. So that set us back about $23... that night Mr M worked at his Mum's place (she's renovating) whilst I went to the gym and he brought Chinese take away home him - another $19.

Tuesday night he had football training, whilst I worked late, and then we went to meet a potential celebrant, leaving her house at 8:30 when we realised we hadn't had dinner. We were near a restaurant we like that we rarely go to because it's across town - so we thought we'd grab a bite to eat - $65 later we headed home!

I have not thought about no spend days all week - and consequently haven't achieved one this week!

So what have I learnt?

1) PLAN PLAN PLAN! I've barely managed to throw together lunch the past couple of days, eating a half-arsed lunch of crackers with tuna and a muesli bar, with a tub of yogurt. Nothing has required any prepartion! We haven't eaten dinner at home yet this week (Wed night and tonight I had functions for the committee I volunteer for) and that's mostly because we haven't defrosted any meat - which is silly, because nothing is stopping us from eating a vegetarian meal for once in our lives! I really need to plan better so there is no reason to eat take away or out. I also need to plan my spending, which helps me make wiser choises. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

2) Spending does not equal more fun! Yes it was nice to be waited on, but I probably would've enjoyed a home cooked meal so much more. The chinese was okay, but my stir fry would've been nicer and cheaper. Dinner out was a very ordinary burger and chips!! You don't always get what you pay for!

3) Spending money is unhealthy! I've been eating so badly, I've put on more weight. I weighed 23.7kg the other morning. WOW. That's over 4 kg I've gained since just before christmas. Monday's lunch was a souvlaki... Monday's chinese wasn't too bad, but I didn't practise very good portion control. I knew I should've picked a nice salad on Tuesday night but I ended up having that chicken burger with chips because I felt like I hadn't eaten out in so long I should have something I wouldn't have at home. Eating out is not a night off from eating well, it's a night off from cooking & dishes.