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!

Rent Increase - Boo!

Our rent at the moment is $450 weekly. In June this year, we've received a letter from the real estate agent offering us another contract,

I note from our records that your Tenancy Agreement is due to expire shortly. The landlord has instructed me to offer you a further Agreement for 12 months under the same terms and conditions.

I have pleasure in advising you that the rent is not to be increased.

The other day, J & I received this in the mail,

I have been instructed by the Landlord of the above property to increase your rent by $10 per week from $450 to $460 per week... The rent is being increased to this level taking into account factors such as the current demand for rental accommodation in the area and the length of time you have lived in the property. I believe the increased rent to be in line with current rental market value and fair to both parties.

So they're planning on changing it on the 5th of December. And we have until before then to make up our minds on whether to accept it or not. J said that he's going to write them a letter. One of the reasons we decided to stay in this place is because they said they're not going to increase the rent and we understood that to be for the whole lease period which is one year. Our next lease ends in September and although J and I want to move to a cheaper 1-bedroom place late next year, we still want to stay here until our lease ends.

Eating out is awesome

but expensive - very expensive!

I've ate out a lot in the last week, probably more than I was expecting which really didn't help the budget (and even though J paid more for it anyway). In the past week, we've eaten at:

(1) Siam Square Thai - one of our local Thai restaurants. The restaurant itself is cosy and the service is always excellent. That is, if you're actually at the restaurant. We've tried their delivery service once and ended up waiting for almost 2 hours. It was a marvel that we still came back but their food is hard to beat. I especially like Mussuman Beef & their satay prawns are to die for. It's pretty cheap as well and it's BYO. For an entree & lots of main to share, expect to pay around $20 each.

(2) Sushi Samurai - J's sister & I had a dinner/movie night on Friday because J was at work all night. We had dinner at my fave Japanese restaurants. I ordered some karaage chicken to share and a chicken & avocado inside out roll and some green tea. The serves are generous and the price is a little bit more expensive than a typical Japanese restaurant. All that I ordered came to exactly $20!

(3) Ichiban Boshi - the best budget Japanese restaurant in Sydney, hands down! J & I have been going here ever since we started dating and that was more than 5 years ago. Since then, the prices have probably gone up less than a dollar but the quality has never wavered. We try and go here at least once every fortnight. On Sunday, we watched An Education (for free and it was a good movie!) and had lunch here. We both had drinks (Calpis water), had an entree to share (gyoza), had mains (karaage cheese curry for me & Aburi Chasu-men for J) and the bill came to less than $35.

I foresee no eating out until maybe this weekend. We're trying to rein it in as we impulsively planned a holiday in December (post on this later!). October is going to be an expensive month as it is because it's my birthday month. I don't have a birthday - I have a birthmonth. I actually celebrate for the whole month because I love birthdays and funnily enough, I actually welcome getting older now. November is going to be a tight-ass month for sure and half of December is too. I don't even want to think about Christmas presents yet!