I’m going to try an post more often. I feel I’m slipping into a bit of a ‘rut’ of just keeping busy to distract myself but not really getting anything much done, so I’m hoping if I blog more I’ll get a bit more motivation in these strange ‘covid’ times.

Last Friday DH had to put the car in for repairs. I’d budgeted $350 but apparently it needed more repairs than DH expected as the final bill came to just over $1000!  So I raided the emergency fund to cover it.

I think I need a bigger emergency fund. Or I might just keep more in the offset account for a while until this pandemic situation is more settled.

Each Sunday we try and prep something for the freezer. Yesterday DD cooked up a huge batch of bolognaise sauce and then made two large trays of lasagna and 16 individual serves of meat sauce. I love the way the house smells when cooking lasagna & it tasted great.

My plans for today in between work, is to catch up on my crotchet, my temperature blanket is quite behind, and to do some decluttering in the pantry.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here! After several weeks of skies filled with red dust & smoke from the bushfires, we had a beautiful bright blue sky, the gale force winds of the night before dropped and the temperatures went down.

 It was so nice to go outside the house and not breathe dusty smoky air, and to finally open the windows. Everyone was enjoying being outside yesterday!

And it really does make you appreciate seeing the sky each day, something I’ve just taken for granted all my life.

Usually bushfire season in Australia is at its worst in January. This year it started in early November and its been very bad. The pollution levels have been very high which we’ve never had here before as we live in the country, and away from the main fire areas, but the wind is just blowing our way, along with the red dust from the drought affected areas. This morning the sky is tinged with red dust again, but no smoke thank goodness.

I had a very pleasant surprise when I checked my pay last night – and $800 extra payment! Apparently I have been underpaid on one of my work allowances for the last 3 years. So nice to have that extra this month while we’re trying to reach our end of year goals! As it was extra it went straight off the mortgage.

Not a huge amount of progress financially in the last month:

Mortgage

• $120,872 down from $121,680
• total reduction $808