Monthly Archives: April 2018

Anzac Day – a day out and about

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Yesterday was Anzac Day in Australia. Its the day when we commemorate and honour servicemen and women.  I had two great uncles who served in WWII and when I was a young girl we had a lovely next door neighbour who was one of the original Anzacs that landed at Gallipoli. He had lied about his age and was only 15 years old when he went to war, looking for an adventure. As a kid I used to read to him after school and just generally follow him around while he fed the chook’s, worked in the garden, chopped the wood. Each year on Anzac day a taxi would arrive to take him to the Anzac parade in town. He was an important person in my life at that time so I remember him with great affection at this time of year.

Yesterday my daughter and I decided to go for a bit of a drive and have a day out together which was lovely. We spent some time at the park and walked around enjoying the changing autumn leaves and the last of the spring flowers.

We visited the fernery….

… and the begonia house, which was just filled with beautiful flowers

It was so nice to get outside for the day and to just switch off from the world for a while. Nice to spend a day with DD just relaxing and chatting. Its a reminder to me to not get so busy with work again that I forget to take time out to enjoy myself.  This is the sort of day I look forward to having more of when I retire, but I need to not wait until then to enjoy myself.

Gas bill & health costs

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Our gas bill arrived this morning and I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve gone back to paying bills weekly this year. I pay $25 a week towards gas.We have gas hot water and gas oven.

My bill was $155.86  for three months and once that was deducted I have a credit balance of $243.73. Our gas use is down 2MJ a day which is good. Our daily cost is $1.71.

So while I have savings on the gas bill this month, I’ll have increased medical costs. I need to refill most of my meds, which are not on PBS, so that is expensive. Over the last week I’ve had bad flare up of my gut problems.So I need to repeat the SIBO testing – it costs $180. If I need the treatment after that – which I expect I will – that is about the same cost.

So I’m back on my basic elimination diet that I follow when this happens. At the moment I’m on chicken broth and stewed apple, tomorrow I’ll add pumpkin. Its a process I’m used to and have had to do many times over the years so I know what works for me and get relief pretty quickly.

One good side effect is I’ll lose some more weight pretty quick, but its not the best way to do it! I had lost 10 lbs before this happened which I’m really pleased about.

So I will probably not make as much extra payments off the mortgage this month as I had hoped but I’ll catch up next month when I get paid for the extra work.

This and that…

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Last week was a sad one at work. Attending farewells, saying goodbye to colleagues who’ve lost jobs. Some have worked there for 30+ years, dedicated teachers.  At one farewell all my conversations were about peoples plans for either retirement, hanging in until possible redundancy, or applying for other jobs.

This is my third restructure. I’m so over it. The organisations’ values are not the same as they used to be and all of us ‘oldies’ are not wanted anymore. I no longer speak up about things as I used to. There is no point wasting my energy unless I really have to. I am there to set myself up for retirement and I am ticking off the days until I can leave.

Yesterday I did the grocery shopping. My savings were: $20 in survey vouchers, $10 CC points and $38.64 savings from specials. So at Coles I got $270 worth of groceries for $200. My plan had been to track all my grocery spending in detail on my blog but I am just too tired now that I’m back at work for a few months and alsodoing the extra work. So I’ll track the savings only for the time being.

We didn’t walk much last week at all, DH has hurt his knee so will give it a rest until next weekend before we start again. I do miss it when we don’t go. The picture in this post is from the last day we walked.

I’ve made no progress on the house decluttering at all, or the yard. I am going to just spend April getting caught up at work and then get stuck into the house again in May.

Well thats a quick update on a few things. I’m feeling reasonably good, just very busy. I’m managing to keep out of the stress and politics at work most of the time so that is good. I’m just accepting that I need to knuckle down and work hard for a year or so but it will be worth it when the mortgage is gone for good.

1719 days to go!