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Archive for December, 2011

City Trip and Boxing Day Sales

December 28th, 2011 at 09:35 am

I had a few things to do today, pay one of my credit cards off now in credit. Buy the group’s lotto ticket for Mega Jackpot on Saturday and I got this job for 2012. It would be nice to win something!

I walked past the departments stores and all retail stores with their Boxing Sales on and everything at 20 -70% off their regular price that may be the case with leftover Christmas lines that I do not need anytime in the next ten years. As for clothes I just don’t need any, only a pair of Black flat court shoes with decent soles on them still can’t find any in my size. I did see two styles that were right again not in my size so I walked on to the bank.

So what did venture into the shopping centre yield today something that I would have brought at my local shopping today paper for the TV weekly shows it a lot cheaper and you get more Free to Air channels in it than the Sunday paper. Cost $1.10.

I saw that our transport fares are going up again on Sunday so will be stay with my Go Card that’s for sure as paper ticket one way trip is now $2.00 cheaper to have a Go Card for the same trip. My normal fare will be going up 11 cents I think I can live with that one.

I had lunch with my Ex work colleagues today, we have been meeting up since we all were made redundant over 13 years ago, all of this group are retired.

We had lunch at the casino our $9.00 member’s meal deal of main meal, cake or fruit salad and coffee. I had Fish with Salad, piece of vanilla slice and coffee. No main meal for me tonight.

I spent only $4.00 playing the pokies as I like to play a little each time so to keep my membership card active.

So how much did I spend today, Boxing Day Sales Zero and Lunch Paper and pokies grand total of $14.10 and paid my Credit Card off.

12th Monthly Financial Summery for 2011

December 27th, 2011 at 10:21 am

I am a very late in putting up my monthly, others things did get in the away at times.

I only just updated my Excel so here are the figures for last month. Next update will be that 13th period included in my annual totals update in Mid-January.

As I work on 28 day cycles, my dates may be out to a calendar months so here are the figures for my last period.

It’s time to start again on reviewing my monthly daily living allowance.

These are the categories for this challenge.
Items === Approx. Budget===Spent
Eating out===$35.00=====$41.70
Groceries===$135.50 ==== $96.84
Non-Food===$17.00=====$17.29
Clothes ====$35.00=====$38.45
Grooming===$15.00
Gas======$25.00======$29.50
Pets====== $50.00=== ==$52.68
HH items===$42.50
Fares== ====$9.00=====$20.00
Entrainments= $12.00
Garden =====$10.00====$39.90
Gifts & Donations =$35.00===$86.45
Medical =====$15.00======$46.15
Diabetes Expenses====$50
Misc ======$9.00
Personal Allowance =$85.00 ====$129.90
Note only one amount is a no spend

Budgeted for this period $580 spent $592.87 so over budget by $12.87.

No Spending days over the 28 days = 8 days in total.
Personal allowance covers confectionery, lotto, books, stamps, craft & hobby supplies.

Eating out including meals out with family and friends, we all go Dutch.

As for medical this is the extra out of pockets amounts that came up this month just on medicine.
As for my medical visits out of pocket expensive if they are related to Diabetes then I will class them as Diabetes Expenses will come under this new category.

Diabetes Expenses - A most will be one off items or once per year expenses. But I need to track these items on my small budget and pension. Each time I pay for some things in this category I will need to cut something in other categories. I will start using this more next year when I start seeing more diabetic trained personal.

My credit cards are still paid in full each month this month I paid half of next month bill so I am ahead here.

Spending on books and papers $88.55 for the month including 5 papers. I hit a online bookstore for some books for a birthday present in January.

I do keep my bill money separated from this summery. This year I will be budgeting around $650 per period month to cover all my bills. This month bills and home improvements were around $1532.92 so no balance banked this month. This included buying a TV Antenna, New glasses and pest control check. This fund does cover all my fixed bills for the year if I can stick to this schedule as I have done for the past ten years or so. This fund does cover replacements when needed. My next replacement due is a new washing machine the money is already saved. On my budget excel modelling chart I can pay the full amount this year. This amount includes the cat’s trip with the Vet.

As for food out, I dined out 4 times this month costing between $20 & $9 a time most were around the $9 mark as I can no longer eat at fast food outlets. That $9.00 meal’s at Casino is still looking the healthiest and best deal in the city for now.

My grocery bill came in under budget for this month.

My clothes and grooming budget was on target this month I bought some underwear.

Most of my social outing are dining out this is part of my social outings money and spending allowance.

If any changes to my spending habits will need to come out of my daily living allowance categories of my budget as my bill categories are very tight now.

Still need to work on a few categories as you can see but over all I had expensive month.

Strategy: - Track your daily spending down to the cent by writing it down daily.

Waste Not, Want Not Christmas

December 25th, 2011 at 10:28 pm

I had breakfast with the family Christmas morning, BBQ sausages, Bacon, Hash Browns, & Eggs with Coffee and 2 Chocolate centred biscuits but true to form they cooked too much food for four adults. So I was given the 8 cooked sausages and 3 small slices cooked bacon to take home. It was still hot when I got home too! As we gave out our presents before we had our bunch so it was almost 10.30am before it was started to cook it.

On the way out my DIL ask if I would have some custard too! Then she came out with the end of the roast ham that they had in fridge too! They are only going away two days but too lazy to cut it off the bone and freeze it. I took that as well all 3lbs of it. The bone will make a great pea & ham soup come winter. Out of the sausages I got 4 servings and 1 serve of bacon which will be tomorrow breakfast and 15 servings of ham which I have frozen for now. Some of it will make salads and other will go into different dishes that I will make over the coming weeks along with what meats I bought in the last week I now have a full freeze again.

But my son works at the fruit markets and was given a tray of mangoes so I got 6 mangoes to top it off.

Tally of foods

6 Mangoes $2.00 each = $12.00
8 sausages uncooked = $5.50
3 slices of lean bacon = $ 2.00
1.5 kg Ham of the bone @29.95kg = $45.00

Waste Not, What Not Total $64.50

These prices are what I would have paid yesterday for the same things had I bought them!

The cats & I had a wonder nibble on the ham scraps while I cut it up for freezing.

Merry Christmas

December 24th, 2011 at 10:24 am

Have a Merry Christmas
...or whatever other end-of-year holiday you might celebrate at this time.
I am having a quite one this year with exchange of gifts and bunch about 10am then the family are off on weekend away at the Gold Coast with the in Laws.

Chain reaction of sorts

December 22nd, 2011 at 09:30 pm

I had to call the roadside assist while out Christmas grocery shopping today.

I opened my door because something was wrong with my foot pedals in the car so I thought. But I had trigged the door lock when got in and didn’t know it. This set off the car alarm which I had forgetting how to stop it. Now I was in a pickle with my DF-M 82 year old with me and all her groceries. Lucky that I had my mobile with me so I could phone roadside assist as I have been member for as long I have had my car licence now!

I ask some other ladies in the car park if they knew how to start the car now that had immobilise it and had on full set the lights across the dashboard and one I had never seen before a car with a key on it. Do you know what that one is? I never knew that my car had a car immobiliser and I had it for the last 5 years. The ladies couldn’t help but had this problem once before and no men were about either to ask. So it a job for road side assist, the lady on the other end couldn’t tell me over the phone how to restart the car as it just wouldn’t start. The service man will have to come out in the next 60 minutes.

Lucky we were in the underground car park and not in full sun. I had to get across to my friend that she couldn’t sit in the close car while we waited, I don’t speak Italian so this took a while in the end she decide get a taxi home instead of waiting with me. As I couldn’t stay with the car as I had to go to the meeting point in the car park. I had to fix up getting that taxi as she past calling for one herself, luckily it came quickly and I was able load most her groceries in the taxi and send her on her way. I sat on the taxi rank seats until I saw the mobile roadside assist car at the traffic lights and was able to direct him to my car.

With all the moving of the groceries and opening the door and locking the doors getting my friend to the taxi the car had reset itself and I didn’t need him after all. It started when I put the key in the lock again like normal. We had a chat about what happen and what does happen with these car immobiliser at times. All I needed to do was push the button on key ring and unlock the car then relock then unlock and drive away. Simple! I was told never to park under Fluorescent lighting in shopping car park or a power transformer in the street as this can them set it off too!
I got home about 15 minutes after my friend and she was still bringing in her groceries and I gave she the tray of mangoes still in my car.

Well I did have a learning lesson after all today of sort. Just uses that button on the key ring it may save money and time in future. My seventy dollars per year membership was worth it. I try to be as stress free as I can.

You can tell I don’t drive it that much!

Strategy - Park your car in a spot that you will get your daily walk done too!

Lost newspaper cuttings found

December 20th, 2011 at 08:30 am

Years ago I went to a pre-garage sale that a church group was clearing out a property for a nursing house inmate. She has died since at 90. The lady was a nursing tutor sister of the white veil and starch uniform kind in 1950's. Sister Bourne was a Miss and kept anything and everything. Under the house were five cardboard containers full of newspaper clipping on cooking, medical, gardening, craft, hint's and tips from late 1960's to 1980's. That they were going to dumper that day so I offered $2.00 for the lot. Five years ago I went thought most of these clippings and dumped what I would never use and filed in order things that I could use. Mostly a lot of magazines pull-out booklets on anything. I had some in my own collection of that time too! So this week I started to tidy some boxes downstairs and found another box that belonged to Sister Bourne so my kitchen looks a mess just now with all these clippings and I did find a recipe for my picked pork file so all was not lost after all. The cheapest meat you can buy per kilo here is Picked Pork at $2.99 kilo. One of my hobbies is to collect recipes using just one common ingredient in all recipes. I have found very few recipes on picked pork so I was happy about that.

Finished my Christmas shopping and giving to charities

December 16th, 2011 at 01:31 am

I only had a few things to get as I don’t give that many present out now. My family is small and don’t give a large expensive gifts to anyone. I believe in the thought that count side of gift giving, if you can afford to give a lot then do!

I always give to some charity or medical research but only what I can afford. This year I have given to the Salvos and Hospital search team asking for one more doctor for the team in Liver research.

Text is PA Research Foundation and Link is http://www.pafoundation.org.au/
PA Research Foundation Liver Appeal

Text is Liver Appeal brochure PDF and Link is http://www.pafoundation.org.au/support-us/christmas-appeal/liver-appeal-brochure-sml-file-size.pdf
Liver Appeal brochure PDF

This Christmas the PA Research Foundation needs your help: Dr Elizabeth Powell and her team are addressing the toughest form of chronic liver disease; fibrosis or cirrhosis of the liver - which more often than not results in end stage liver disease where the only treatment option, if available, is a liver transplant. To achieve this urgent research the PA Research Team desperately needs $90,000 to be raised to engage a specialist researcher to support this project.

I think this will be doable!

This research may save lives in the future around the world because there sure aren’t lot of donated livers around.

Want is it with some other charities; I keep getting requests for money with free items in them. I keep the free items because they have my name on them mainly address labels but thanks but no thanks. I don’t give to this kind of charity because they are run by businesses and give a percentage of the earning to the charity whom name they used and it’s quite small amount. Tick this box for a monthly donation of $50, $100 what who can afford this kind of donation when living below the poverty line in their country I sure can’t.

Finely got my lawn done!

December 14th, 2011 at 09:49 am

My son finely came to mow my lawn as it was getting too long for me to do it myself! It has been raining since it was time to mow! This will be the last time this year too! He did get to move a few items on the lawn that were in the way but I was just mowing around them the best I could. He also was dismantling the old TV antenna so it could be put into the rubbish tomorrow.

I did prune a few weed trees out before they got too big. We have the problem trees next door.

Working on my 2012 budget and goals

December 12th, 2011 at 10:37 am

I have started making my budget for 2012, as my budget is finished for this year as when I made it years ago, it was a few weeks before Christmas so I just keep following on. My expenses have risen over the past year and spending money on new computer didn’t help either. I now think now my spending now is about $1500 more than my age pension so I am going backward a little but I can cut back in some areas to make this money up. The medical fund and antenna is coming out of 2012 fund so that’s around $3200 next week. The Money is already in the bank to pay these as I never spend money without having it in the bank first.

So my challenge for 2012 is to spend money on getting my house painted. My goal is to only spend what I get paid from age pension to live on and just use earmark money for the painting that I have been saving for the past few years. The painting can’t be put off any longer it must be done next year.

No spending over weekend

Job Done

December 8th, 2011 at 09:15 am

My Digital Antenna is up and works the way it should. The installer took over 4 hours to do the job and cleaned up after too! I was able to find the old antenna cables and remove them so they are gone now! I am lucky that no one can live under my house as all the lines are visible for all to see. I have tried so if I could work out which cable was for what. Most are old phone lines which I am leaving there but none work now, the main power cable runs under there too! I do write on them what I think each one is, as I am worried that someone will try to move them one day when I am not around. I even found the original phone line 60 years old. You can't legally live under there but it's a great storage area. Height is not high enough for someone 5ft 6inches or over to walk freely around without hitting they head on a beam or ten. In some places its only 4 feet high. The total cost was the quote $840 with better antenna which was stronger and cord for one of TV which didn't have one. This sounds a lot of money it done now. I am very happy with the service that I received.

Booked the Job in!

December 5th, 2011 at 07:20 pm

I finally booked the job so I will be getting the Digital Antenna this week, as I have been going to do this work done for last 2 years since I got my first digital TV 3 years ago now! They are the cheaper end of Digital TV so no fancy one here. Large Plasma TV don’t work in this house as you would be sitting on top of them. I didn’t go for Plasma TV as these are expensive to run power wise.

Quotes on the Digital Antenna

December 3rd, 2011 at 08:36 am

I did a Phone around here for my Christmas present to myself that Digital Television Antenna I have been putting off for year or two now! I least I can afford it and I will need to get one soon. I rang up three installers and got one quote by phone and another company came out to do the quote. The third company I am still waiting for a call back but they the dearest one if past dealings with them it will be expensive. The quotes were very much within $10 of each other when I add in amplifier on the phone quote. I need this as I get no signals with antennas I got now, if I have any breeze as I am below the buildings around me. Some are three stories high.

And the phone quote is for only 4 points only. This will allow moving the TV around without worrying NO signals on some Channels. If I don’t have amplifier I can have only one point and drop outs. I own three TV and plan one into other rooms if I need too! These are the bedrooms that have no TVs if I was ill then I would need one.

$840 with amplifier with 5 points cost of on 3 points so 2 points, splitter free and discount on amplifier. Saving discounts are around $470.

They will be the mostly likely will get the job as it’s the one that my son had to do his.

Australia is going all digital TV over the next two years some areas are already 100%. By 31 December 2013 there will be no Analog TV signals are phrased out altogether. Our area will be complete by June 2013.

Strategy - Ask about any discounts and don’t worry if you forgot to ask about it, worse they can say is NO if you go back and ask.