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.

Streetcar Named Desire

Budget for this week: $150 (period from Oct 01 to Oct 07)

When setting up my weekly budget, I usually have a look at my calendar to see what my plans are for the week. Here is a play by play of what I have planned until Wed (of course, this could change at any minute).

Oct 01 (Thurs) - Work, stay at home for dinner as J is working night-shift

Oct 02 (Fri) - 10 hours of work today, straight home after a long week, J is working again

Oct 03 (Sat) - PT session in the morning, no plans for the afternoon, probably chill at home and watch a few DVD's, J is working night again

Oct 04 (Sun) - absolutely no plans - might go out for a quick brunch with J once he wakes up.

Oct 05 (Mon) - public holiday today. My friend has invited J & I to her new apartment for lunch. Her mom is also newly arrived from China and this lady cooks the best dumplings! I will bring some wine for my friend and a box of chocolates for her mom (she gave me a box a few Christmases ago). I'm budgeting $25 for this.

Oct 06 (Tue) - back to work, very very busy day - another 10 hours, hopefully J will cook me dinner so I can go straight to bed

Oct 07 (Wed) - I took a day off today because my gfs and I have booked a Cate Blanchett play back in January of this year - it's Streetcar Named Desire at the Sydney Theatre Company. The seats have already sold out in January so we could only get a 1pm showing and that's why I have to take the whole day off. My friends & I might have coffee afterwards but I definitely want to be back home for dinner. Budget for the day: $30 (Tickets already paid for)

You might have noticed how pedantic I am about planning my days. I live for my 30 Boxes and check it all the time. I used to over book before but now I'm starting to like being a homebody for a while. Let's see if I can make it through the week with $150.

Budget: Period from Oct 1 - Oct 14

Income: $1970

Rent: $400
Family: $249
Private Health: $127
Personal Training: $89
Uni Loan: $146
Credit card: $150
Travel Fund to J: $450
Week 1 budget (01 to 07): $150
Week 2 budget (08 to 14): $200

My week 2 budget is larger because I'm going out with a few friends to celebrate my birthday. We're going island hopping ($48) and then I have another friend's birthday dinner coming up on the 10th.

New goals - JAPAN!

The good thing about goals is that they are flexible and ever changing. J & I seriously set down our goals in August of this year and the major one is to save up enough money for a home deposit so that we can get a mortgage by next year. Since August, we've saved up $8000 together. I've never been much of a saver so saving $4000 by myself in a short span of time (while still paying down debt) is an achievement for me. Now I know I can do it and I can do it easily.

Our goal to get a mortgage is still intact but there are other forces in play such as an impending wedding, paying down debt and travelling. Initially, we were going to save up 5% of our loan and get a mortgage immediately, now we've decided to save up a little bit more so that we would have more money to use for our mortgage. But that can change any minute as I'm quite impulsive.

J & I are going to have two weeks off for Christmas & New Years this year and we don't usually get to spend December holidays together because J has to work most NYE so we wanted to celebrate somewhere special. At first, we were planning on going for a 7-day road trip from Sydney to Queensland. I made a budget and it was going to be much expensive than I thought it would for an Australian holiday. And honestly, I don't think it was going to be worth it and I wasn't going to be happy with it in the long run. So we've decided to go to JAPAN!!! Yep, we're heading off to Japan for two weeks this December to celebrate Christmas and NYE in TOKYO! I'm so excited!!!

This will of course impact heavily on our savings. We already have $4000 each (plus J has an EF of $2500) saved up and we've decided NOT in any circumstances touch this money. So what we're going to save in the upcoming months from October to December will be our Japan money. I think it's definitely going to be worth it!

September Goals Review

Financial Goals:

1. Savings of $1000 in personal ING account - DONE!
2. Pay off $292 in university debts (to tax office) - DONE!
3. 10 NSD Challenge - FAIL! I only had 4 No Spend Days in September. How sad is that?
4. Don't use the credit card - FAIL! Yes, it was used. Again and again.
5. Fill out green form and send it off to work's Financial Services so my HECS debt can be automatically taken off my tax pay each year - FAIL! Completely forgot to do this.
6. Record every spending for the entire month - FAIL! I'm pretty sure I may have missed (or omitted) a few days or items here and there.

Other Goals:

1. No Sweets Month - EPIC FAIL! This is not ever going to be a goal again because it's just not possible.
2. Exercise 3 times a week including PT session - FAIL-ish! Sometimes we went for 3, sometimes 2 or none at all. Must do better in October.
3. Drink alcohol only 2 nights a week - DONE! I probably only had 2-3 drinking days in September!

Next month I am going to have more greens!

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!

sydney is in mars

I woke up on Wednesday morning and the sky was bright orange. I thought the summer bushfires has started and that it was nearer to our place than usual. It turns out that it's just a big roll of dust from the country. The sky was tinged orange until the middle of the day. During the night, I went to the city and there was dust everywhere.

[photos from sydney photographer tomhide - visit his flickr!]

End of the week

I can't believe I haven't posted anything since Monday night - this week has been such a blur of bad sleep & work.

Remember in my previous competitions post, I joined a magazine competition to win a free pass to a wedding expo. Well, I won and we went. And it wasn't anything special. I'm just so glad I didn't pay for it since the tickets cost $95 each.

Someone called me on Monday to say that I've won (yay!), I left work early on Wed and met up with J's sister in the city and we headed straight to the expo. This is our second wedding expo together and the first one was $10 and was tackorama all the way with a fashion lingerie show (in nurse's outfits!) but this one was held at the Tea Rooms in QVB which is a very expensive and popular wedding venue. The exhibitors were very good brands but I think it's just the whole wedding business that puts me off especially when I see the prices ($8000 for a one-day photography and video package?!) and the whole hoopla on just one day. It's just not me at all but anyway, they're good fun while you're there and you end up with a free wedding magazine or two and about 10,000 brochures and calling cards that goes straight to the bin once you get home.

On the money front, there have been no major dramas or purchases but I have been really lazy and haven't been preparing my breakfast for work. Here are the misses of the week:

Tuesday (22nd Sept)
$5 - breakfast usually consisting of a small coffee & huge slices of raisin toast
$32.50 - Groceries
$48 - ok, so there have been a major purchase. A friend of mine went to China on a holiday and is kindly bringing me back some DVD's - this is for 6 boxed sets.

Wed (23rd Sept)
$4 - yummy chocolate-covered coffee beans
$11.40 - expensive lunch at QVB in the city. This got me a spinach & feta filo with salad (which means 3 lettuce leaves) and a small coffee. Ah! The price we pay for living in Sydney. J, his sister and I went to an awesome Thai dinner though and J paid (thanks love!)

Thurs (24th Sept)
$5 - Breakfast
$6.50 - Lunch (the best chicken, avocado, sun dried tomatoes and other goodies on a huge brown roll)

Fri (25th Sept)
$5 - Breakfast - this time a bacon & egg roll
$32 - I treated J to lunch in a fancy cafe near work
$20 - Dinner with J's sister at Sushi Samurai (the best Japanese place in our area!)
$3 - my share for the ice cream which turned out to be really bad. How can someone mess up chocolate ice cream?

Total: $172.40

Budget Update : Sept 21

This weekend has been heavy on the budget due to us hosting a BBQ at our place. I always over prepare for these situations. I shop too much and prepare too much and at the end of the day, there are a lot of leftovers. This time, there weren't so many and J & I are having what is left for lunch. I think that's the last BBQ we're hosting for the year at our place. October through to December are busy times and I'm still not sure if we're hosting a Christmas dinner/BBQ at our place this year since they all usually happen at J's parent's place.

Here's how I did starting

Thursday:

$7 - breakfast (I was not at work on Thursday, I was doing a course and I only had 4 hours sleep because I woke up at 3am for some reason and I couldn't get back to sleep so I had a very large double-shot coffee and a cake of some sort hoping that the sugar buzz will get me through the morning)
$3.50 - another coffee boost

Friday:

$14 - cake tin & A Long Kiss Goodnight DVD from Target
$11 - 1 kilo lamb mince
$20.75 - 2 kilos chicken breast
$28 - Groceries
$24 - 2 huge bottles of champagne & beer

Saturday:

$12 - Blockbuster
$5.60 - Groceries

Sunday:

$15 - Groceries
$7 - muffins
$10 - groceries from IGA (what a rip-off!)
$3.60 - bag of mixed salad leaves

Total: $161.45

That means I have $28.55 until Wednesday! Today is another day off and it's looking good to be another No Spend Day. I'm not going out unless it's going for a run tonight.

Cheap & Easy: Penne with Meatballs

The ultimate cheap and easy meal is pasta - get a few grams of meat, a pasta sauce and you're set. Or if you have pasta, some olive oil, herbs, spices and some vegetables, toss it together and it makes a simple healthy meal.

J & I love our pasta. We try and not have it often (due to high carbs!) but it's definitely one of our fail safe meals. Tonight, I'm cooking a simple penne pasta with meatballs. The recipe called for frozen meatballs but I made my own tonight for the first time. The frozen meatballs are usually around $6-7, the home made ones are less than that and yummier. I usually get mince when they're on sale for around $2.50 per half a kilo. Most of the other ingredients you should have in your cupboard.

Meatballs

1/2 kilo pork mince
1 egg
breadcrumbs
1.5 cup tasty cheese
salt & pepper to taste
fresh herbs

Mix these ingredients together and roll them up into little meatballs.

Then fry them. Once they're cooked, add mushrooms and the pasta sauce of your choice. In a sauce pan, bring water to a boil and put your penne in. Mix together. Sprinkle with some more fresh herbs.

Eat with gusto and a glass of wine!

Free... All Free!!

FREE MOVIE!

I scored two free movie tickets today to see An Education at Dendy Opera Quays cinema. It was from a ladies fashion company that I'm a member of (thank you David Lawrence!). The movie stars Peter Sarsgaard (who's brilliant in everything he's in!) and it won the Audience Choice award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Can't wait. I'm taking J of course since it's on a Sunday and it's his day off. We might as well make a day of it and have a nice lunch afterwards.

FREE MOO CARDS!

Moo, the cute printing company that sells business cards, post cards, mini cards, sticker cards, etc are giving away a free 50-pack of business cards. You only have to pay for postage which in my case was about $6 (From the UK to Sydney). I've ordered from them before and I was very happy with the over all quality of the cards and their efficiency. This time, I had some picture of J&I printed with a Love Always message at the back. I'm planning on using them for Christmas gift cards.

Free stuff is awesome!

$4964

New Networth updated on the right side bar! Yippeee... That's another $530 added in the last two weeks.