Monthly Archives: April 2018

11 Bags to the op shop!

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I haven’t done much decluttering lately so yesterday I decided to get back into it. I had some bags already filled with clothes and household goods ready for the op shop and I spent some time going through my wardrobe for clothes that were no longer needed.

 By the time I finished I had eleven big garbage bags filled for the op shop so we drove down and dropped them off. Its freed up quite a bit of space and I feel like I’m in the right frame of mind to get back to getting rid of ‘stuff’ in the house.

I also have started working on shredding whats left of all the paper. My goal is to have all the paper shredding done by the end of May.

I’ve also started doing my flylady zones again. The house is a real mess and I find I manage better when I  follow the flylady system and do my 15 minutes zone work each day.

Grocery Shopping

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Although I haven’t been posting my grocery shopping lists the last few weeks I’ve been tracking how much I save on each shop. I’d like to the detailed lists but am just finding I’m too busy now I’m back at work. Hoping I can get back to doing it some time in the future.

At the moment my offers for Coles are at $100/week for 4 weeks and Woolworths $35/week for 4 weeks.

This week we spent:

Coles $122.27
Woolworths $37.49
IGA-B $10.83

Savings were:
Coles $39.90 saved + $10 CC points =  $49.90 saved
Woolworths+  $32.50 saved

So this week we got  $252.99 worth of groceries  for $170.50

 One really good thing that has happened is that that our corner shops area is now being turned into a much bigger complex with a supermarket. Its good because there is so much building work and road work going on there and its so difficult to get in that we just have stopped going there – which is saving us money.

My stockpile is really full despite trying to reduce it and the freezer is also going down very slowly. I plan on getting stuck into eating through this food during May.  Once this current points promotion is done I am going to start doing more shopping at IGA-B. There fresh produce is cheaper than Coles and really good quality. So we’ll spend less at Coles after next week. I know I can get the grocery bill down lower if I just put a bit more effort in, and blogging about it does help!

Mortgage milestones & holiday plans

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I made an extra payment on the mortgage to reach the end of Year 11 total on the original amortisation schedule.

So our current mortgage balance is now $154,682. My next goal is to get under $150,000

It feels good to mark another year off that chart and to see how much interest we have saved.

We made some changes to our holiday plans and had to pay extra to change our flights. I also didn’t take into account some of the taxes that get applied so our final price is more than I originally planned. However its going to be an awesome holiday (Canada, Alaska, Japan) so it will be worth it!  I need to spend the next month or so paying for it so I won’t be making as much extra payments off the mortgage till that is done.