My Weekly Spends.......Christmas Gifts

Christmas shopping started in earnest today, and I have now got my youngest Grandaughter a talking teapot, plastic food items for playing shops. A pack of knickers, she is just starting her toilet training, two pairs of shorts 1 Aqua 1 pink and 2 tops to go with the shorts. I also bought a Secret Santa gift voucher to the value of $50 for one of the girls in work. I also bought the cutest largest size gift bag with Mickey Mouse in a Santa hat on it, to put my Grandaughter,s gifts into. I also made a start on my oldest Grandaughter,s gift but she is so hard to buy for.

An expensive pay day today here is the breakdown.

spend	category	value	delete
Christmas Party Food	Food Treats	$56.00
Lion Finance	Debt	$25.00
Gifts	Christmas 2010	$132.00
Millars	Clothes	$13.00
Aldi	Groceries	$162.00
3 mobile	Mobile Phone	$56.00
Coffees	Coffee With Rose	$12.00
	total today:	$456.00

On the plus side I had 4 no spend days this week, and I still have money in the bank, all round a good week.

We Have Oprahitis Over Here

In case anyone in the free world is not aware of this Oprah has landed down under. In fact she is almost at my back door ( hope she doesent mind a bit of rain ) I have always been a bit of an Oprah fan I find her TV shows interesting and thought provoking.

But we do have other things happening here at the moment not that the media seem to be aware of this as 8 of the headline stories this morning were about Oprah. this was followed up at dinner time by yet another interview. Quite frankly I,m all Oprahed out, still it is all in the name of Tourism.

I have just been into my bank account to see if my wages were in ( sadly they were not ) and discovered that my financial institution has an online Budgeting Tool, sounds as if that might be something I,d be interested in, so I may have a prowl through it after it has taken around 72 hours to upload my last three months banking history.

I managed to work 2 hours overtime today, through the week is the best time for me to work any extra hours as Hubby is home with Mum, this will go into next weeks wage. Pay day tomorrow. will post my spends then.

Another no spend day today.

Aged Care Allowance Perhaps

Today I got all my paperwork in order and waited in the longest queue at our local Centrelink Office to lodge my application for a Carers allowance for my aged Mother-In-Law who lives with us. Over the last year she has been needing more and more of our time and attention, in order to do some of the most simple tasks. I have decided that as she is getting more dependent on us I will have to take back some of the household duties that she has been responsible for, and cut back on my working hours, so little or no overtime depending on if she is going to be left home alone. ( these were duties which she insisted on doing to pay her way, as we are both out working )

The Allowance is for only $56 a week but it is non taxable and so added to my normal wage it should cover some of the expenses of driving her around. It is always touch and go when you lodge a claim to see if you qualify, so fingers crossed for us, although it is going to be the beginning of next year before we hear if we have been successful.

Another no spend day for me the 4th this week, but really I could be doing with Grocery shopping, as butter, milk and chocolate biscuits are running low. Still it won,t be long now until payday.

My Whinge Fest.............Sorry !!!!!

I spent no money again today, and with only another three days to go until payday and enough food in the house to last until then it looks as if I might make it through. Hubby gets paid tomorrow and he will be taking care of our rent, and outstanding phone bill, putting money onto his credit card, and doing God knows what with the rest. He is definitely the weak link in this financial chain, and the situation is getting really dire, as I don,t feel as if I can rely on him at all.

I heard someone make the statement that " If life kicks you make sure it kicks you forward " and I am going to take that on board I feel as if I play the victim. I write a post about how awful my finances/ workmates/ Hubby/situation is and everyone rallies round and tells me everything is going to be fine, stick with it, you can do it, and I walk away post accomplished. I have probably done it again with this post. I don,t come across as a strong Woman who is taking control of her life, and I have no idea where this needy person came from. Have I been kicked so often that I can,t get up, or are things not really as black as I think, after all I own a car and all my bills are paid, I have a job, and a roof over my head.

When I started to write this post I was only going to mention that I had another no spend day. And somehow that became this, a whinge fest. Got to get a positive thought out of all this.

POSITIVE THOUGHT

Today we were told officially that we would not be having a works Christmas Party this year, so what,s positive about that I hear you ask. It means that I will have a free day to get myself and my home into the festive spirit. It means that the leg of ham we can expect from our work as a Chrissie present will find it,s way straight into my fridge instead of lying in work, going off, while we enjoy ourselves having lunch, free drinks, and a laugh........ What more could an employee ask for.

At long last Some Wedding Photos/ Worth Waiting For

The Happy Couple I thought they were like something from Gone With The Wind

My Handsome Grandson acting as his Dad,s Best Man

My Beautiful if nervous Granddaughter, she was the only Bridesmaid

I went over to my Daughter,s last night to babysit and while I was there I stole these photos and emailed them to myself, so I would have them in a form I could use in blogger, I,m not sure if I like the sepia tones of the children,s photos, as the red and white of the little ones dress does,nt show up particularly well. But she has got such a lovely face I don,t think anyone noticed her dress.

One of these days I will post some pictures of The Marquee decorations I made.

Spends for today $20.00 for Groceries, I,m now well and truly skint !!!!!!!!!

Weekly Spending Tracking

Today is payday and I had a few payments to make including the last of the two rent payments I made to help out hubby, so all up a pretty expensive day. Hubby is paid on Tuesday and he is going to be covering the phone bill which is usually paid by me, this means that my load has been lightened a little. You might notice that I have managed to make a payment of $150 into my debt, I had fallen a little behind during the Month but I am now back up to date again. Unfortunately I had forgotten that my drivers license was due to expire this week, and not having put anything aside to pay for emergencies etc. the payment had to come out of my Grocery money. Hopefully the food in my freezer and pantry, will last till next Friday,s pay.


Rent $365.00
Debt $150.00
Woolworths Groceries $19.00
Morning Tea $10.00
Drivers licence $52.45
Petrol $20.00
Entertainment $26.00
Total today: $642.45

I havent budgeted for December as I,m going to have to pay out almost every cent I earn in order to start fresh in January, however I will do a weekly account of where the money is getting spent.This is this weeks, and as you can see almost 50% of the money spent this week was on Rent.

2010-11-29 Petrol $10.00
2010-12-03 Drivers licence $52.45
2010-12-03 Petrol $20.00
TOTAL FOR CAR EXPENSES $82.45
CLOTHES
2010-11-30 Red Cross Clothing $18.00
TOTAL FOR CLOTHES $18.00
DEBT
2010-12-03 Transpacific $150.00
TOTAL FOR DEBT $150.00
ENTERTAINMENT
2010-12-03 Morning Tea $10.00
2010-12-03 Pictures $26.00
TOTAL FOR ENTERTAINMENT $36.00
GROCERIES
2010-11-28 Fruit and Veg $10.00
2010-12-03 Woolworths $19.00
TOTAL FOR GROCERIES $29.00
HOUSEHOLD
2010-11-28 Curtains $10.00
2010-12-03 Rent $365.00
TOTAL FOR HOUSEHOLD $375.00
NO SPEND DAY
2010-12-01 Nothing $0.00
TOTAL FOR NO SPEND DAY $0.00
SPENDLESS YEAR
2010-12-02 Spend Less Day $0.00
TOTAL FOR SPENDLESS YEAR $0.00
XMAS 2010
2010-11-30 Xmas Cards $33.80
TOTAL FOR XMAS 2010 $33.80
TOTAL $724.25
I copied these figures straight from spendingdiary.com which I am loving using.

A No Spend Day My First In December

My purse stayed well and truly closed today, even although I had a day off of work and a Doctor,s Appointment. However it won,t last as tomorrow is payday, the first one of the month, and after paying all I am due there will be very little left over. Will post all my outgoings tomorrow.

I made a start on writing my Christmas Cards today, I have 4 categories.

Overseas Mail
Local Mail.
Hand delivered mail
E-cards
So far I have written out all the cards which are going overseas, and tomorrow I will buy the stamps and post them.

I have finished filling in the application form for the carers allowance for my MIL and will present it to our Centrelink Office tomorrow ( Social Security ) hopefully I have dotted the I,s and crossed the T,s but if not I would rather find out straight away instead of posting it in and then finding out I have missed something they needed.


Positive thoughts

I have been immensely cheered by the support I have been offered by my blogging friends, I thought after making such a mess of my finances during November that I would take some criticism. Instead everyone has been supportive and most think I will be back on track by the end of the year. And so to prove them right I will be back on track. Thanks xx