Expensive October

I've braced myself that October is going to be an expensive month for me. It's my birthday on Saturday (the 17th) and I usually celebrate all month long. I love birthdays and I couldn't resist - I never used to be this way. When I turned 20, I was hyperventilating because I thought I was "too old" but I'm turning 28 in 3 days and I just could not wait. Finally, I'm relishing getting older!

My $200 Week 2 budget just sufficed (kind of - I had to use the black card once or twice). Some major expenses include:

$23 - treated a friend at work to a birthday lunch on the 8th. She bought me lunch today for my birthday. Now we have a new tradition!
$50 - Sydney Harbour Island hopping ticket - my girl friends and I went on a half day cruise around the islands (4 in total) and it was fun albeit a bit cold. We bought drinks and food and just ate and chatted our way through out the whole day
$20 - wine & beer. We had dinner at J's parents place and we brought some drinks over.

The remaining was spent on groceries and more food! We've eaten out so much since last week. Last Saturday night, we had Spanish tapas for a friend's birthday dinner, we had the Indian dinner on Sunday night and I treated J to Thai on Monday night.

And I'm going out again for the next two nights... eep, that's another post in itself plus new budget!

Leaking Money & New Budget

My CC debt went up from $387 to $620 in the last week. Yikes! We were short while paying for the groceries so I had to pay using the black CC. J sent me $50 by direct debit for his share but silly me, spent the money instead. Oh well, my savings are still intact and I'm putting more on my CC for this pay.

J also had an unexpected expense this week. He wears monthly contact lenses and on April this year, he got an ulcer in his eye from a cut possibly from his contacts. So he had to go to his optometrist then to the eye hospital to get eye drops. Last night, he came home and his right eye was really red and looked infected so he had to go through the same process again this time. The eye drops and the consultation are expensive but hopefully he can get some of it back on Medicare (public health system) and on NIB (our private health). Contact lenses are a bitch and he's planning on getting LASIK next year. I got my eyes done in 2005 and it was the best thing I've ever done! More on this later...

Payday tomorrow so here's the budget for the next two weeks. I thought I was going to be short of my goal to save $1000 this month as I had to send extra money overseas to family but it turns out that I got paid a bit more than anticipated.

Income (next two weeks): $1965

Rent: $400
Family: $359
Personal Training: $87.55
Uni Loan Payment: $146
Credit Card: $175
Home Deposit: $450
Week 1 Budget: $190
Week 2 Budget: $150

Week 1: Sept 17 to Sept 23
Week 2: Sept 24 to Sept 30

My week 1 budget is about $40 more because we're having a party at our place on Sunday. J & I are going halves so our budget is going to be around $60 for food & drinks but I budgeted extra anyway, just in case.

P.S. That black card is going to be locked away again! It's just too dangerous to be around.

Put that Black card away!

The only way I can manage my finances is to do this daily:

$10.00 - breakfast (very naughty, I know but it's the first breakfast I've bought in the whole week at work. It was a work colleague's last day and our team went out for coffee and B&E rolls. So damn delicious!)
$2.00 - Freddo frogs
$13.60 - new notebook & paper from Eckersley's (black*)

Total: $25.60

*Black refers to my black Visa card which I'm trying to pay off and I should really NOT be using!