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January roundup

Wooop! Wellington lodge is BOOKED. I have many weaknesses; great ethnic food, all things dessert, and the beach spring to mind. Luxury hotels are another. This is not five-star accommodation (although at $150 a night you’d think it should be), but it will have a spa bath. 😀

It also means I probably won’t save much this month, as that alone is just over $450 for three nights.

And now, the cold hard numbers. Percentages, as always, are of total spending, not of income, so they’d be slightly lower in that context.

If you’re curious, here’s an explanation of how I track and categorise our expenses


  • NOTES

Clothes/grooming: Haircut for him, new bra for me ($5 out of pocket !)

Dining and bars – $106? You must be joking! I think that’s a record low, and a WIN for keeping this to $160 and below. (To be fair, another $30 cash was spent on beer at Big Day Out. Clearly, I will be the one in charge of cash at Homegrown, and if he wants to drink he can sort his own money out. Also, we went to the annual Seafood Festival and spent $40 in cash, but I reckon that’s more of an event or entertainment :P)

Entertainment: We hit up the museum, arcade and the salt pools at Parnell Baths.

Groceries: Yikes, I knew it was a bad one, but sheesh. It was a five week month thought, right? We’ll see how close to $500 we can get this month (yay short months.) But I’m not sorry!

Holidays: Remainder of holiday/late New Year spending.

Insurance: Contents cover for a quarter.

Mystery shopping: Goodies from Lush. One of which turned out to be a skin saviour, and even though I didn’t score another survey this month, I went back with my 10% coupon to buy Dream Cream out of my own pocket. It’s clear I have chronic eczema, and I refuse to rely on steroid creams all my life.

T fun: More money on car sounds, mostly. The last of it. We now have embarrassingly loud bass, the kind that benefits nobody, that’s how much power it has. Although the amp came in a neat little engraved blondwood case…classy!

Vehicle: $460 on new tyres and alignment. (This was so out, it’s literally almost halved our fuel consumption. And with petrol at $2 a litre, we need all the efficiency we can get. Who knows, maybe we can drag a tank out to two weeks now?) There’s one more niggly issue we’re getting looked at (probably a wheel bearing), and hopefully that’ll be it for major costs for some time.

As for saving, actual total savings was 43.75% of my income this month. It was only 29.4% of my regular income though, so if it wasn’t for freelance I wouldn’t have hit the magic mark. T didn’t bring in much; he hadn’t accumulated any paid leave for the holidays, and worked some short days.

2 thoughts on “January roundup

  • Reply FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com February 5, 2011 at 11:11

    Purdy….. *pet pet* 🙂 The graph is pretty.

    Your dining out is very low. I’m noticing now that my meals cost $30 or more each time, and if I go out with co-workers, it’s only 3 meals! Maybe 4, max if we go cheap.

  • Reply Serendipity February 14, 2011 at 08:17

    You save an amazing amount of your income. I am in awe girlie. You motivate me to pinch my pennies.

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